iEI 


Tragedy 
Of  a  Nation 


WRITTEN    AND    EDITED 
BY 

MR.  AND  MRS.  PAUL  YEFTICH 


1 

1 
1 

1 

0 


Copy  of  this  Book  can  be  obtained  at: 
P.   YEFTICH. 


THE  LIBRARY 
OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY'' 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


IN  MEMORY  OF 
MRS.  VIRGINIA  B.  SPORER 


TRAGEDY 


OF  A 


NATION 


Written  and  Edited 

by 
Mr.  &  Mrs.  Paul  Yeftich 


• 


FRANCO-SERBIAN     FIELD     HOSPITAL 


Ube  Serbian  national  Hntbem. 


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TRAGEDY     OF     A     NATION 


THE  SERBIAN  NATIONAL  ANTHEM 

1  God  of  Justice!    Thou  Who  saved  us 

When  in  deepest  bondage  cast, 
Hear  Thy  Serbian  children's  voices, 

Be  our  help  as  in  the  past. 
With  Thy  mighty  hand  sustain  us, 

Still  our  rugged  pathway  trace; 
God,  our  Hope!  protect  and  cherish 

Serbian  crown  and  Serbian  race! 

Repeat — 

God,  our  Hope!  protect  and  cherish 
Serbian  crown  and  Serbian  race! 
Serbian  crown  and  Serbian  race! 

2  Bind  in  closest  links  our  kindred, 

Teach  the  love  that  will  not  fail. 
May  the  loathed  fiend  of  discord 

Never  in  our  ranks  prevail. 
Let  the  golden  fruits  of  union 

Our  young  tree  of  freedom  grace; 
God,  our  Master!  guide  and  prosper 

Serbian  crown  and  Serbian  race! 

3  Lord!  avert  from  us  Thy  vengeance, 

Thunder  of  Thy  dreaded  ire; 
Bless  each  Serbian  town  and  hamlet, 

Mountain,  meadow,  hearth,  and  spire. 
When  our  host  goes  forth  to  battle, 

Death  or  victory  to  embrace, — 
God  of  armies!  be  our  leader! 

Strengthen  then  the  Serbian  race! 

4  On  our  sepulchre  of  ages 

Breaks  the  resurrection  morn, 
From  the  slough  of  direst  slavery 

Serbia  anew  is  born. 
Through  five  hundred  years  of  durance 

We  have  knelt  before  Thy  face, 
All  our  kin,  O  God!  deliver! 

Thus  entreats  the  Serbian  race.      Amen. 

Author,  Jooan  Giorgedlch  Translated  by  Elizabeth  Christiich 


2040745 


TRAGEDY     OF     A     NATION 


My  Experience   As  A  Red   Cross  Nurse 

Written  by  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Paul  Yeftich 


SERBIA 

IT  was  in  response  to  an  appeal  which  came  to  the  women 
of  England  that  caused  me  to  volunteer  my  services  with 
a  mission  of  doctors  and  nurses  to  go  into  Serbia  during  the 
awful  plague  of  Typhus  fever  which  had  been  brought  into  that 
clean   little    country    by    the    Austrians.       They   spread    it    by 
placing  the  germs  in  wells  and  by  inoculation  and  by  body  lice. 

When  we  arrived  we  found  conditions  deplorable.  It  was 
not  unusual  to  go  on  duty  in  the  wards  and  find  fifty  or  sixty 
patients  dead.  They  had  died  during  the  night.  Seventy- five 
English  doctors  and  nurses,  including  Lord  Chichester,  gave 
their  lives  for  the  victims  of  the  scourge.  No  greater  crime 
was  ever  committed  against  a  noble,  self-sacrificing  people 
than  when  the  enemy  sowed  the  seeds  of  Typhus  among  the 
Serbians. 

The  Austrians  in  the  campaign  of  1914  destroyed  nearly  all 
the  wood  that  they  could  get  their  hands  on,  and  there  was  not 
sufficient  material  to  make  coffins.  It  became  absolutely 
necessary  that  prisoners  of  war  be  employed  to  dig  large  trenches 
into  which  the  bodies  of  the  unfortunate  victims  of  Teuton 
frightfulness  were  thrown  like  the  carcasses  of  animals.  The 
death  toll  was  fearful.  One  hundred  and  eighty  thousand 
people  succumbed  to  the  plague  in  Serbia  before  it  was  checked. 
But  one  never  heard  the  Serbians  complain.  They  are  built  of 
heroic  mould.  The  patients  were  most  grateful  and  appreciative 
of  anything  done  for  them  and  it  made  the  work  of  caring  for 
them  a  pleasure,  sad  as  the  surroundings  and  hard  as  the  nursing 
conditions  were.  We  considered  it  a  privilege  and  an  honor 
to  nurse  the  Serbians. 


FRANCO-SERBIAN     FIELD     HOSPITAL 


They  are  a  people  of  high  ideals  and  of  strong  moral  fiber. 
What  appealed  to  us  was  the  respect  and  consideration  paid 
by  the  men  to  their  wives  and  children.  During  the  fourteen 
months  which  I  spent  in  Serbia,  I  never  saw  one  case  of  drunk- 
enness. Even  the  smallest  boy  would  not  think  of  passing  the 
Sisters  without  removing  his  cap. 

There  was  something  most  appealing  in  the  eyes  of  the 
Serbian  children,  a  most  pathetic  expression.  They  were  so 
timid  that  it  was  some  time  before  we  could  make  friends  with 
them.  Many  of  these  poor  little  souls  knew  nothing  but  the 
horrors  of  war  and  the  sight  of  a  stranger  frightened  them. 
They  did  not  know  what  kind  of  treatment  they  would  receive, 
and  would  run  away  screaming  until  assured  by  our  interpreter 
that  we  were  friends. 

The  Serbian  peasants  won  our  hearts.  They  are  the  heroes 
and  the  heroines  who  have  sacrificed  all  they  possessed  in  the 
world  because  of  their  fiery  patriotism  and  supreme  loyalty 
to  the  nation.  Many  may  never  see  their  wives  and  children 
again  because  they  may  be  among  the  thousands  sent  into  a 
Turkish  harem. 

One  day  we  received  word  that  the  Germans,  Austrians  ana 
Bulgarians  were  fast  invading  the  country  and  we  must  prepare 
to  leave  the  sufferers  to  receive  the  wounded  soldiers  sent  from 
Belgrade  to  Kragujvatz.  In  five  days  every  place  available 
was  turned  into  a  temporary  hospital.  Soon  the  hospitals, 
stables  and  barns  were  overflowing. 

I  wish  I  could  forget  the  terrible  sights  we  saw  when  the 
shattered  frames  of  humanity  were  carried  into  the  hospitals. 
Many  poor  victims  of  shot  and  shell  had  their  jaws  blown  away, 
their  thighs,  hands  and  feet.  The  Germans  and  Austrians 
had  used  dum-dum  bullets  against  the  Serbians  in  Belgrade  in 
spite  of  the  international  law.  Once  the  bullet  strikes  the 
bone,  then  the  explosion  follows,  blowing  the  limb  away.  Four 
thousand  seven  hundred  men,  many  of  them  desperately 
wounded,  were  brought  for  treatment.  The  hospitals  were  so 
crowded  that  two  and  three  were  placed  on  one  bed,  others  on 
the  floor  and  in  the  corridors.  Many  we  could  not  admit  and 
they  were  left  lying  in  the  fields 

We  ran  very  short  of  medical  supplies.  We  had  to  pad 
splints  with  straw  and  the  doctors  and  nurses  made  bandages 


TRAGEDY     OF     A     NATION 


from  their  white  coats  and  aprons.  There  was  no  heat  in  the 
hospital  and  we  had  very  little  food  for  the  men  as  we  were 
unprepared  to  receive  so  many  wounded.  Death  came  as  a 
merciful  release  to  hundreds  of  these  poor  heroes  who  had 
made  such  a  determined  stand  for  the  freedom  of  their  little 
country. 

We  worked  on  for  sometime  at  the  hospital  under  very 
trying  circumstances.  One  morning  in  the  latter  part  of 
October,  1915,  we  were  startled  to  hear  and  see  the  Austrian 
airplanes  flying  over  Kragujvatz,  and  still  more  alarmed  when 
the  Austrians  began  to  drop  their  bombs.  One  dropped  near 
the  Sisters'  Home,  smashing  all  the  windows  and  killing  one  old 
man  and  wounding  many  children  who  were  on  their  way  to 
school.  We  then  realized  what  it  meant  for  a  country  to  be 
at  war. 

We  found  our  wounded  patients  in  a  very  excited  condition, 
but  after  the  first  shock,  they  became  more  composed,  and  we 
began  to  dress  the  severely  wounded.  The  wounds  that  were 
light  were  also  cared  for  and  dismissed  from  the  hospital  to  go 
their  way. 

Sir  Ralph  Paget,  in  charge  of  the  English  Mission,  motored 
over  from  Nish  to  break  the  news  that  Lady  Paget  with  her 
doctors  and  nurses  had  been  made  prisoners  of  war  by  the 
Bulgarians.  He  gave  us  instructions  to  dress  the  patients 
as  quickly  as  we  possibly  could,  as  we  might  have  to 
leave  the  hospital  at  any  time.  He  told  us  that  poor  little 
Serbia  was  being  invaded  and  overrun  by  the  Germans,  the 
Auatrians  and  Bulgarians,  and  it  was  impossible  for  the  allies 
to  send  help.  We  faced  a  very  serious  situation. 

The  work  had  been  so  arduous  and  the  excitement  had 
severely  shaken  our  nerves  and  we  were  feeling  very  tired  and 
worn  out  when  the  order  came  for  us  to  flee  from  the  hospital 
with  only  fifteen  minutes'  notice.  We  had  an  opportunity  to 
carry  away  only  a  few  necessary  articles.  Our  deep  sorrow 
and  concern  was  for  our  patients  left  behind.  As  we  looked 
around  at  our  wards,  leaving  4,700  shattered  frames  of  hu- 
manity without  heat, 'food,  clothing  or  medical  supplies,  we 
almost  doubted  the  existence  of  a  God.  Never  can  we  forget 
the  wails  of  agony  which  came  from  the  throats  of  the  poor 
unfortunate  men  who,  through  no  fault  of  their  own  had  been 


FRANCO-SERBIAN     FIELD     HOSPITAL 


drawn  into  this  cruel  war  and  left  to  suffer  here  at  the  hands 
of  an  inhuman  enemy. 

The  first  night  after  leaving  the  hospital,  we  slept  out  in 
an  open  field.  We  were  without  food  to  sustain  us  on  our 
journey  the  following  day.  It  took  us  seventy-seven  days  to 
walk  across  Serbia,  over  the  mountains  of  Montenegro  and 
through  the  wilds  of  Albania.  We  became  footsore  and  very 
weary  before  our  flight  ended.  All  along  the  way  we  saw 
wounded  men,  women  and  children  drop  dead  in  the  snow  — 
many  of  them  were  frozen  to  death  during  the  night. 

When  we  arrived  at  Mitrovitzathe,  the  town  was  filled  with 
refugees.  Men,  women  and  children  had  suffered  the  bitterest 
agony  which  human  being  could  know.  Many  were  half- 
naked,  soaked  with  blood,  and  were  dying  in  the  stables  and  out 
in  the  open  fields.  The  Serbian  retreat  was  not  a  retreat  of  a 
county  but  the  retreat  of  a  nation.  It  was  one  of  the  most 
tragic  things  that  has  happened  during  the  war.  There  was 
no  friendly  hand  awaiting  the  poor  Serbian  refugees  at  the  end 
of  their  flight  and  truly  they  have  paid  the  price  of  Crucifixion. 

When  we  arrived  in  Italy,  we  were  half  starved  and  covered 
with  vermin  from  head  to  foot.  We  scarcely  had  shoes  left 
on  our  feet,  and  truly  we  did  say,  "Thank  God,"  when  we 
arrived  in  Italy.  But  our  thoughts  wandered  back  to  the 
suffering  ones  left  behind  in  Serbia. 

The  sufferings  of  the  Serbians  have  brought  them  nearer 
to  Christ.  They  have  not  wandered  away  from  the  Shepherd's 
fold  and  if  ever  there  is  a  nation  prepared  to  meet  the  changes 
that  will  come  with  World  Peace,  it  is  our  loyal  little  ally, 
Serbia. 


King  Peter  of  Serbia  is  much  loved  by  his  people.  He  is  a 
man  of  very  simple  manners  and  of  charming  personal  qualities. 
In  times  of  peace  he  wears  a  small  mustache,  but  he  now  wears 
a  beard  which  is  a  custom  when  mourning  for  the  misfortunes 
of  the  nation.  The  crown  prince  is  another  member  of  the 
royal  family  whose  image  is  enshrined  in  the  hearts  of  the  people. 
He  did  not  seek  a  place  of  safety  when  the  troops  were  engaged 
in  battle,  like  other  royal  personages  in  the  world  war,  but  was 
on  the  front  line,  sharing  the  danger  of  battle  and  cheering  his 
men  on  to  victory  and  standing  by  them  when  forced  to  accept 


TRAGEDY     OF     A     NATION 


The  above  portrait  is  the  latest  of  King;  Peter  of  Serbia  which  has 
reached  the  country.  It  will  be  noted  that  the  King  wears  a  full  beard, 
whereas  formerly  he  had  only  the  mustache  and  Imperial.  This  has 
been  done  as  a  sign  of  mourning.  In  Serbia  it  is  customary  for  a  father 
to  let  his  beard  grow  as  a  sign  of  mourning  for  the  death  of  a  son. 


the  bitterness  of  defeat.  It  was  such  leadership  that  did  so 
much  to  make  the  Serbs  the  most  effective  and  dashing  fighters. 
He  suffered  privations  like  the  common  soldier  and  rose  to  the 
heights  of  sublimity  as  a  leader.  He  is  every  inch  a  prince 
with  the  high  qualities  demanded  of  a  real  king.  No  history 


10  FRANCO-SERBIAN     FIELD     HOSPITAL 

of  the  people  will  be  complete  without  giving  him  a  leading  part 
in  the  heroic  struggle  to  beat  off  the  Austrians  and  the  Germans 
bent  on  the  total  destruction  of  a  brave  and  gallant  race. 

The  Bohemians  are  staunch  friends  of  the  Serbians,  and 
one  of  the  tragedies  of  the  horrible  war  was  when  they  were 
forced  to  fight  against  the  Serbs  by  Austria.  Bohemian  soldiers 
told  graphically  how  three  of  their  regiments  were  shot  down 
by  the  Austrians  because  they  refused  to  fight  against  their 
old  friends  and  brothers.  There  is  no  greater  or  more  glorious 
self-sacrifice  than  to  die  for  a  friend.  The  fealty  and  loyalty 
of  the  Bohemians  to  the  Serbs  will  live  ever  in  song  and  story. 

Serbian  women  have  the  artistic  sense  highly  developed. 
They  are  very  skillful  with  the  needle  and  fashion  the  most 
beautiful  and  dazzling  creations.  The  designs  for  their  cos- 
tumes show  great  originality.  They  also  make  rugs  of  most 
wonderful  beauty  and  variety.  They  are  skilled  with  the 
looms  and  much  of  the  clothing  worn  is  made  at  their  homes. 
They  raise  silk  worms  in  more  peaceful  and  happier  times  and 
make  the  finest  and  most  beautiful  silk.  The  girls  and  women 
present  a  picturesque  appearance  because  of  their  attractive 
mode  of  dressing.  Serbian  peasant  girls  frequently  carry  their 
wealth  around  their  heads.  A  girl  of  this  class  with  a  collection 
of  gold  coins  on  her  head  and  her  gown  covered  with  solid  gold 
braid  is  certainly  a  stunning  creature. 

The  married  women  wear  a  headdress.  The  rearing  of  girls 
is  very  strict  and  they  are  never  permitted  the  liberty  and 
license  that  American  girls  are.  A  Serbian  girl  would  soon  be 
in  disgrace  if  she  took  the  bit  in  her  teeth  and  walked  the  streets 
alone  at  night.  She  would  be  severely  punished.  She  must 
always  be  accompanied  by  a  chaperon.  The  customs  of  the 
country  will  not  brook  any  other  sort  of  conduct. 

The  Serbians  are  justly  regarded  as  a  highly  moral  people. 
If  a  Serbian  boy  is  seen  drunk  in  a  hamlet,  or  village,  it  goes 
hard  with  him.  Parents  frown  on  him  and  they  refuse  to  give 
their  daughter  in  marriage  to  one  whom  they  regard  as  a 
drunkard  and  a  person  of  low  ideals. 

Serbian  women  of  wealth  and  distinction  wear  magnificent 
costumes.  A  photograph  shows  one  of  these  highborn  dames 
wearing  a  gown  of  the  most  dazzling  kind.  There  are  pearls 
on  her  neck,  diamonds  in  her  ears  and  her  coat  is  a  brilliant  red 


TRAGEDY     OF     A     NATION  11 

of  marvelous  design  and  trimmed  with  gold  and  silver  braid. 

A  patient,  uncomplaining  creature  is  the  Serbian  peasant 
woman.  They  bore  the  burdens  at  home  when  the  men  went 
to  war.  They  did  their  work  and  their  own,  and  kept  the 
"home  fires  of  patriotism  burning."  The  brave  and  cheerful 
conduct  of  these  peasant  women  has  marked  them  as  real  hero- 
ines. Nothing  crushed  the  Serbians  more  than  when  the 
Bulgarians  tore  10,000  women  and  girls  from  their  homes  and 
sent  them  into  Turkish  harems. 

Serbians  are  a  deeply  religious  people.  They  belong  to 
Lutheran  Orthodox  Church  which  is  closely  related  to  the 
Church  of  England.  They  cherish  the  hope  that  when  the  war 
is  over  all  churches  will  be  united  in  a  common  brotherhood. 
They  are  sending  missionaires  to  the  United  States  for  that 
purpose.  Their  churches  are  now  in  ruins  as  a  result  of  the 
vandalism  of  the  Austrians.  One  of  the  churches  located  near 
Skopia  was  very  ancient  and  of  intense  interest  to  tourists  and 
the  natives  because  of  its  great  antiquity  and  its  quaint  archi- 
tecture. It  was  in  this  church,  now  destroyed,  that  the  Serbians 
took  their  last  communion  before  they  fell  into  the  clutches  of 
the  Turks.  The  monasteries  suffered  the  same  cruel  fate. 
One  at  Deachany  was  built  seven  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago. 
It  is  now  simply  a  pathetic  memory.  It  has  been  said  of  the 
Serbians  that  they  would  never  have  had  the  fortitude  to  bear 
their  heavy  burdens  if  they  had  not  had  their  eyes  fixed  on  the 
Cross  of  Calvary. 

Reflecting  their  burning  patriotism,  is  the  history  of  their 
enslavement  for  500  years  by  the  Turks.  Their  hard  masters 
sought  to  destroy  every  vestige  of  national  feeling,  but  they 
could  not  kill  the  fires  of  nationality  which  burned  within  their 
breasts.  It  was  kept  alive  in  every  humble  home.  Queer  to 
relate,  much  of  this  was  due  to  the  magic  of  a  certain  musical 
instrument  on  which  was  played  the  harmony  of  the  enslaved 
country.  It  was  music  that  saved  a  nation  in  bondage  from 
losing  its  identity.  When  the  Serbians  were  again  a  free  people 
they  found  themselves  without  schools  and  school  books,  and 
without  the  means  of  restoring  their  language  as  a  medium  of 
education.  The  nation  had  to  begin  the  old  life  over  again. 
But  there  were  heroic  souls  and  souls  with  a  mighty  courage 
and  initiative.  They  found  a  way  out  and  the  nation  was  born 


12  FRANCO-SERBIAN     FIELD     HOSPITAL 


again  with  all  of  the  tools  to  make  good.  That  it  recovered 
its  full  strength  and  power  and  made  itself  felt  in  the  world 
though  a  small  and  comparatively  weak  nation  has  been 
strikingly  shown  by  the  firm  place  it  holds  in  the  affection  and 
admiration  of  democratic  countries. 

Before  the  Austrians  and  the  Germans  brought  their  merci- 
less iron  fists  down  on  the  heads  of  the  gallant  Serbs,  the  nation 
was  fast  recovering  from  other  wars  which  had  taxed  the  re- 
sources and  drained  some  of  the  best  blood  of  the  little  nation. 
These  people  are  peace  lovers  by  nature  and  do  not  fight  except 
when  their  very  existence  and  their  homes  are  imperiled.  The 
Serbs,  a  few  years  before  they  were  hammered  and  beaten, 
after  heroic  resistance  against  the  Turks,  were  engaged  in 
restoring  their  country  to  its  normal  condition. 

Serbia  was  again  tasting  the  joys  of  peace  and  prosperity. 
It  was  rapidly  acquiring  wealth  and  stability.  The  sword  had 
been  replaced  by  the  plowshare,  the  musket  and  the  bayonet 
by  the  reaper  and  the  hoe.  It  was  a  happy  and  optimistic 
nation,  anxious  to  recover  its  old  economic  condition  and  though 
still  scarred  by  war,  the  scars  were  not  deep  enough  to  check 
its  onward  march  in  the  arts  of  peace  and  in  preparing  itself  to 
throw  its  full  strength  when  necessary  to  defend  its  national 
existence. 

Then  came  the  day  when  it  had  to  cast  its  fortunes  with 
the  allies  or  the  central  powers.  It  was  promised  great  things 
by  the  Huns  and  it  was  a  time  of  mighty  temptation.  The 
road  to  more  glory  and  more  power  was  pointed  out  if  the 
Serbians  would  desert  the  cause  of  freedom  and  democracy. 
The  leaders  of  the  people  saw  clearly  what  might  happen  if 
they  led  them  away  from  the  Teutons,  but  they  did  not  falter. 
The  die  was  cast,  the  nation  true  to  its  traditions,  its  history 
and  the  glorious  heritage  of  its  past,  threw  itself  on  the  side  of 
the  allies.  It  knew  what  a  hard,  thorny  road  it  would  have  to 
travel  because  it  understood  the  cruel  and  merciless  nature 
of  the  Huns  and  something  of  the  punishment  they  would 
inflict  if  they  won.  But  no  realization  of  the  actual  horrors  to 
follow  was  permitted  to  stop  the  lofty  purpose  of  these  freemen. 
"Give  me  Liberty,  or  give  me  Death,"  was  as  much  their 
national  cry  as  it  was  that  of  the  United  States  in  the  days  of  '76. 

No  more  pathetic  situation~is  that  of  the  Serbians  because 


TRAGEDY     OF     A     NATION  13 

they  chose  freedom  instead  of  autocracy.  When  help  failed 
to  come  from  their  more  powerful  Allies,  it  was  not  the  flight 
of  an  army;  it  was  the  flight  of  a  nation.  The  Serbs  true  to 
form  and  reputation  fought  like  tigers  and  remained  in  the 
front  line  of  battle  until  they  were  threatened  with  complete 
annihilation.  Then  to  save  the  remnants  they  were  compelled 
to  flee.  If  their  leaders  had  willed  it,  they  would  have  fought 
until  the  last  man  went  down  wounded  or  dead.  This 
remnant  was  further  reduced  by  cholera,  typhus  and  other 
terrible  diseases. 

The  nation  has  been  denationalized.  No  sadder  story  was 
ever  told,  nor  one  which  arouses  more  burning  indignation  and 
world-wide  sympathy.  The  United  States  must  do  its  bit  to 
help  this  people  to  begin  anew  as  a  nation  after  the  war  is  over. 

Their  houses,  their  churches,  monasteries  and  schools  have 
been  destroyed  by  the  enemy,  and  even  their  orchards  and  their 
forests.  Their  gold,  their  silver,  and  their  horses  and  their 
cattle  have  disappeared.  They  will  return  to  the  most  desolate 
land  in  the  world  with  no  resources  but  their  strong  hands  and 
their  brave  hearts.  They  must  have  aid  from  this  powerful 
and  liberty-loving  country  to  get  on  their  feet  again.  They 
might  have  been  wallowing  in  prosperity  and  plenty,  like  the 
Bulgars  if  they  had  preferred  to  turn  traitors  instead  of  choosing 
the  path  of  the  free.  The  Serbs  paid  an  awful  price  but  the 
gain  is  the  love  and  admiration  of  the  friends  of  liberty  every- 
where on  the  globe.  Phoenix-like  they  will  rise  some  day 
from  their  ashes. 


It  is  difficult  to  realize  that  the  Germans  and  the  Austrians 
are  classed  as  Christian  nations  since  they  have  committed 
such  cruel  acts  in  the  name  of  war.  They  have  been  caught 
with  the  "goods"  on  them.  Their  brutality  has  been  witnessed 
so  often  against  the  Serbians  and  the  Belgians  that  the  civilized 
world  stands  aghast.  We  have  pictures  showing  a  little  Serbian 
girl  bayoneted  in  the  shoulder;  a  woman  bayoneted  through 
the  armpit.  A  child  was  ravished  by  three  Bulgarian  soldiers 
and  was  found  in  an  unconscious  condition.  A  Serb  colonel 
was  found  dead  with  his  heart  cut  out  of  his  body.  One  pho- 
tograph shows  the  terrible  effects  of  the  dum-dum  bullet  on  a 
wounded  Serb  warrior.  Snap  shots  were  taken  of  a  number 


14 


FRANCO-SERBIAN     FIELD     HOSPITAL 


Latest  Picture  of  the  Crown  Prince  of  Serbia. 


of  bodies  which  had  been  burned.  When  these  bodies  were 
examined  by  doctors  they  found  them  one  mass  of  blisters, 
showing  conclusively  that  the  victims  had  been  burned  alive. 
Another  photo  told  the  story  of  another  form  of  cruelty.  The 
enemy  had  been  found  guilty  of  hanging  peaceful  Serbian 
farmers  by  their  necks  in  the  public  square.  A  picture  of  one 


TRAGEDY     OF     A     NATION  15 

of  the  victims  of  Hun  brutality  was  found  in  the  pocket  of  a 
German  officer  when  the  Serbs  recaptured  Monastir.  According 
to  a  diary  which  was  found  at  the  same  time,  the  brutes  forced 
the  women  and  children  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet  to  stand  by 
and  witness  the  murder  of  their  husbands  and  fathers  being 
hung  by  the  neck.  In  order  to  further  terrorize  the  population, 
they  circulated  these  awful  pictures  to  scare  the  people  into 
renouncing  the  Serbian  government  and  recognizing  Austria 
as  their  master. 


It  has  been  said  that  the  Serbian  peasants  before  the  war 
were  the  happiest  people  in  their  little  kingdom.  They  had 
their  homes  and  their  bit  of  land  and  their  live  stock  and  they 
lived  in  comfort  and  supreme  contentment.  Their  lot  was 
much  more  agreeable  and  stable  than  the  peasantry  of  many 
other  European  nations.  They  were  denominated  masters  of 
the  soil.  Their  small  holdings  could  not  be  lost  through  bad 
management  or  other  causes  so  common  in  the  history  of  the 
small  home  or  land  owner  because  the  government  fixed  that. 
Therefore,  these  homes  and  the  few  acres  of  land  had  been  in 
peasant  families  for  generations. 

Because  Serbia  was  a  place  of  small  landed  proprietors  she 
was  stronger  than  most  nations  in  the  loyalty  and  patriotism 
of  her  people.  Being  owners  and  not  vassals  or  tenants,  the 
Serb  country  folk,  big  and  little,  were  grounded  deep  in  love 
and  devotion  to  their  native  land. 

The  peasants  are  a  deeply  religious  people.  They,  as  well 
as  other  classes,  reverence  their  holy  days  with  great  sacredness. 
On  Christmas  morning  they  screen  off  a  corner  in  one  of  the 
poorest  rooms  and  lay  straw  in  the  corner  and  that  represents 
the  Manger  in  which  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  was  born.  Their 
festivities  do  not  commence  until  after  Christmas. 

Before  the  war  the  Serbian  markets  were  very  interesting 
and  wonderful  places  for  the  stranger  or  traveler  to  view. 
Marketing  is  done  in  a  sort  of  a  primitive  way  but  it  adds  to  its 
picturesqueness.  No  matter  how  poor  a  Serbian  family  is, 
the  artistic  sense  is  highly  developed  among  the  girls  and  women. 
This  artistic  development,  the  French  call  it  "chic"  in  speaking 
of  their  women  admiringly,  is  reflected  in  the  appearance  of 
the  Serbian  femininity  whether  it  is  at  the  market  place  or  in 


16  FRANCO-SERBIAN     FIELD     HOSPITAL 

the  drawing  room  of  a  palace.  So  the  Serb  women  and  girls 
are  quite  as  attractive,  but  in  a  different  way,  when  offering 
for  sale  the  fruits  of  the  earth.  The  peasants  have  always 
been  intensely  devoted  to  the  land  and  they  are  not  happy  in 
the  towns  and  the  cities.  One  of  the  most  common  causes  of 
homesickness  resulted  from  the  war  when  the  fathers  and  sons 
were  forced  to  leave  the  spot  where  they  had  passed  their  lives 
in  such  a  happy  fashion.  It  was  like  tearing  a  great  tree  which 
had  afforded  shade  and  shelter  for  long  years,  out  by  the  roots. 
For  centuries  the  Serbs  on  the  farms  have  been  raising  and 
making  nearly  everything  eaten  and  worn  on  the  farm.  In 
most  every  home  there  was  a  loom  and  homespun  cloth  was 
made.  A  Serbian  now  in  the  United  States  said  that  his 
clothing,  his  shoes  and  his  stockings  were  all  produced  on  the 
farm  of  his  parents. 


What  about  the  regeneration  of  Serbia  after  the  world  war. 
One  thing  there  will  be,  a  new  Serbia  born  again  from  the  ruins 
of  the  old.  But  Serbia  must  have  the  help  of  a  powerful  friend. 
The  United  States,  the  giant  of  the  western  world,  must  aid 
the  bravest  and  pluckiest  little  nation  known  in  history,  to 
get  on  its  feet  and  stay  there.  It  must  loan  the  Serbs  money 
and  a  lot  of  it.  The  Americans  will  never  lose  a  dollar.  A 
people  who  can  fight  and  suffer  and  die  like  these  men,  women 
and  children  of  the  Balkans,  can  be  trusted.  They  are  too 
brave,  too  self-sacrificing  and  patient  to  throw  down  their 
friends. 

The  Serbian  lands  are  immensely  rich.  With  the  help  of 
the  industries  of  America,  a  new  Serbia,  a  modern  Serbia  will 
rise  again  in  the  place  of  the  old  nation  which  the  Teutons 
and  their  allies  have  nearly  destroyed. 

The  country  will  need  most  everything  to  begin  keeping 
national  housekeeping  again.  It  will  need  railroads,  locomo- 
tives, lumber  for  new  homes,  machinery  such  as  harvesters 
and  mowers,  derricks,  lathes,  household  goods,  hardware  of 
all  kinds  and  a  multitude  of  other  utilities  to  begin  life  once 
more.  How  serious  the  present  situation,  is  shown  by  the 
fact  that  the  small  nation  is  lying  prostrate  at  the  feet  of  the 
Huns.  But  a  happier  day  will  come  for  Serbia  with  the  financial 
help  and  backing  of  the  United  States. 


TRAGEDY     OF     A     NATION  17 

Serbia  has  much  to  offer  investors.  She  will  prove  a  paradise 
for  capitalist  to  invest  their  surplus  cash.  It  is  the  center  of 
the  Balkan  territory  and  the  keystone  state.  Any  industry 
started  there  would  meet  with  great  success. 

All  lines  of  business  will  prosper.  The  manufacture  of 
automobiles,  agricultural  implements,  wagons,  toys  and  other 
industries  will  flourish  and  expand  with  abundant  capital  to 
finance  them.  Serbia  will  have  an  outlet  to  the  sea.  It  will 
have  in  time  ample  railroad  facilities.  There  is  only  a  railroad 
passing  through  the  country  connecting  it  with  Asia,  India  and 
Persia,  with  Europe  and  touching  the  great  cities  of  Petrograd, 
Moscow,  Budapest,  Vienna,  Berlin,  Paris,  Antwerp,  Brussels, 
and  other  important  trading  points  in  Europe.  Serbia  is  the 
gate  between  Europe  and  Asia.  Before  1912  the  country  was 
surrounded  by  three  hostile  nations,  Austria,  Bulgaria  and 
Turkey,  and  she  had  no  outlet  to  the  sea,  and  she  could  not 
place  her  goods  on  the  markets  of  the  world.  She  could  not, 
therefore,  develop  her  natural  resources  and  she  suffered  for 
the  want  of  adequate  capital. 

Serbia  revels  in  mineral  riches.  Her  mines  have  not  in 
reality  been  touched.  She  is  a  storehouse  of  underground 
wealth.  Her  soil  is  among  the  most  fertile  in  the  world  and  her 
forests  are  of  immense  value.  American  capital  can,  if  it  will, 
uncover  the  treasures  undreamed  of  before  in  that  pearl  of 
the  Balkans.  She  is  the  only  barrier  to  pan-German  control 
of  the  Balkans.  She  bars  the  pathway  of  the  Teuton  on  the 
way  to  Turkey. 

Serbia  will  be  eager  to  handle  the  implements  of  peace  as 
she  was  to  sacrifice  her  best  blood  and  treasure  to  help  the 
allies  win  for  democracy  by  whipping  the  Teutons  and  the 
Turks. 

Serbia  has  been  cleaned  out  by  her  cruel  and  rapacious 
enemies.  They  have  pillaged  everything  of  value  they  could 
get  their  hands  on.  When  homes  of  the  people  were  not  de- 
stroyed utterly,  they  were  robbed  of  their  fixtures.  They 
took  the  plumbing  and  all  metals,  window  frames  and  even 
the  hinges  on  the  doors.  This  plunder  was  loaded  on  cars 
and  sent  to  Austria  and  Germany. 

Serbia  will  welcome  outside  capital  to  help  her  develop 
her  excellent  resources.  A  law  passed  in  1898  authorized  the 


18  FRANCO-SERBIAN     FIELD     HOSPITAL 

government  to  make  concessions  and  very  favorable  terms  to 
foreigners  coming  into  the  country  willing  to  promote  mining 
and  manufacturing  industries.  The  mines  of  Serbia  are  very 
rich.  The  gold  and  silver  mines  are  practically  untouched. 
Coal,  iron,  lead,  zinc,  copper,  nickel,  mercury,  manganese, 
graphites,  marble,  oiliodine  and  sulphur  are  found  in  abundance. 
The  mineral  resources  of  the  country,  which  are  very  great, 
are  yet  undeveloped.  Serbia  is  rich  in  mineral  springs,  and 
they  have  been  quite  as  neglected  as  the  mines  because  of  the 
need  of  sufficient  capital  to  work  them.  Waters,  rich  in  iodine 
and  sulphur  abound  in  the  country.  Also  hot  springs  and 
mineral  waters.  The  baths  of  Nish,  Vranya,  Obrennovatz, 
Valjevo  and  Shabatz  are  famous  for  their  health-giving  powers. 
Besides  being  visited  by  the  more  prosperous  class  of  Serbians 
they  are  highly  esteemed  by  people  from  other  countries. 

Belgrade  is  the  capital  of  Serbia.  Before  the  war  of  Turkey 
and  Bulgaria  against  Serbia  it  had  a  population  of  70,000. 
At  the  beginning  of  1914,  the  opening  year  of  the  world  war  its 
population  had  increased  to  120,000,  an  advance  of  50,000 
within  the  period  of  a  year. 


TRAGEDY     OF     A     NATION  19 


Serbians1  Remarkable  Feat 

A  military  writer  in  the  Zeitung  of  Cologne,  Germany, 
gives  the  Serbians  the  credit  of  being  the  best  fighters  the 
central  powers  have  yet  met  in  the  field.  The  incentive  of  the 
small  nation  was,  of  course,  of  the  strongest.  The  Serbians 
knew  that  the  central  powers,  nominally  Austria,  had  decided 
to  wipe  out  their  nation.  They  also  knew  that  their  govern- 
ment had  made  every  possible  concession  and  had  done  what 
was  humanely  possible  to  keep  the  peace.  They  could  fight 
and  die  against  overwhelming  odds.  Without  hesitation  they 
chose  the  latter  alternative. 

Everybody  remembers  the  terrific  fight  the  Serbians  put 
up  against  the  first  invading  Austrians.  The  proud  Austrian 
forces  were  either  wiped  out  or  driven  like  sheep.  Hence  the 
overrunning  of  Serbia  by  Austria  was  postponed.  Later  in 
the  game  the  Austrians  came  back  in  overwhelming  force, 
backed  by  numerous  German  regiments.  The  Serbians  after 
fighting  to  the  human  limit,  made  their  escape  by  an  almost 
superhuman  winter  retreat,  through  what  were  considered 
impassable  mountain  gorges  and  so  managed  to  reach  friendly 
territory  in  such  shape  that  they  could  reform  their  decimated 
ranks,  refit  themselves  and  come  back  into  the  war  a  formidable 
fighting  force. 

History  will  give  the  Serbians  full  measure  of  the  glory  of 
their  achievements.  When  the  story  of  all  the  suffering  and 
daring  against  odds  is  written  it  will  form  one  of  the  most 
heroic  chapters  of  the  vivid  war  of  naked  heroism  against  the 
piled  up  brute  force  of  40  years  of  wicked  scheming  and  cun- 
ningly concealed  preparation. 


20  FRANCO-SERBIAN     FIELD     HOSPITAL 


Kossovo,  1389 
And  The  World  War 

By  Sidney  Coryn 


IT  is  not  a  little  significant  of  the  changing  relationships  of 
the  world  that  such  a  meeting  of  representative  American 
citizens  should  be  held  in  San  Francisco  in  order  to  celebrate 
the  anniversary  of  the  Battle  of  Kossovo.  But  I  think  that 
we  are  celebrating  something  more  than  the  anniversary  of  a 
battle.  We  are  celebrating  also  the  beginning  of  an  era  of 
Serbian  history  that  we  believe  to  be  now  approaching  a  trium- 
phant end.  We  are  reminding  ourselves  of  a  struggle  for  human 
freedom  that  is  probably  without  its  like  in  the  history  of  the 
race.  And  we  are  looking  forward  to  the  end  of  that  struggle 
with  the  confident  belief  that  it  will  bring  with  it  the  emanci- 
pation of  the  Southern  European  Slavs  as  well  as  the  emanci- 
pation of  civilization  itself  from  the  threat  of  a  most  cruel  and 
remorseless  tyranny. 

Surely  it  is  now  time  that  the  world  should  recognize  its 
debt  to  the  Serbian  people.  For  we  are  not  here  to  offer  them 
the  gifts  of  our  benevolence.  It  is  not  only  our  charity  that 
we  would  tender  to  them,  grievously  though  they  need  it. 
Our  debt  is  one  of  gratitude,  and  if  we  have  for  long  been  una- 
ware of  our  obligation  it  should  now  be  discharged  with  an  added 
emphasis.  It  is  a  debt  due  from  a  young  western  nation, 
founded  on  the  ideals  of  human  liberty  to  an  eastern  people 
already  old  in  suffering  and  in  martyrdom  for  those  same  ideals. 
For  before  this  nation  was  born,  the  soil  of  Serbia,  every  inch 
of  it,  had  been  reddened  again  and  again  with  the  blood  of 
her  patriots  who  died  for  human  freedom.  It  was  Serbia  who 
offered  herself  as  a  shield  of  flame  and  steel  between  Europe 
and  the  Asiatic  invader.  It  was  Serbia  who  made  possible 
the  evolution  of  European  civilization  with  its  promise  for  the 
western  world.  It  was  Serbia  who  turned  back  the  tide  of 
Mohammedan  empire  and  saved  humanity  from  the  paralysis 
that  threatened  it. 


TRAGEDY     OF     A     NATION  21 

The  imagination  can  hardly  conceive  of  a  world  in  which 
the  battle  of  Kossovo  had  not  been  fought,  in  which  Serbia 
had  not  resisted  the  Moslem  flood,  and  so  given  to  Europe 
the  necessary  time  in  which  to  save  herself.  Europe  was  almost 
too  late,  even  then.  The  Turks  had  taken  Buda  Pesth  after 
the  Battle  of  Kossova.  A  little  later  and  they  were  under  the 
walls  of  Vienna.  It  was  one  of  those  crises  in  which  humanity 
holds  its  breath,  one  of  those  tremendous  epochs  when  the 
world  seems  to  shiver  upon  the  edge  of  irretrievable  cataclysm. 
But  for  the  valor  of  Serbia  there  would  today  be  a  Mohammedan 
empire  from  the  Bosphorus  to  the  Atlantic.  The  civilization 
of  the  human  race  would  have  been  arrested,  paralyzed,  ossified. 

All  this  would  be  a  matter  only  for  the  curious  student  of 
history  but  for  the  fact  that  we  have  now  witnessed  a  repetition 
of  the  role  played  so  magnificently  by  Serbia  five  hundred  years 
ago.  Just  as  she  interposed  herself  between  Europe  and  the 
Turk,  so  she  has  now  interposed  herself  between  the  world 
and  the  Teutonic  domination.  She  was  shattered  by  the 
Turk  in  1389.  She  has  been  shattered  by  Austria  and  Germany 
in  the  war  that  is  now  being  waged.  It  is  the  same  role  but 
upon  a  different  stage.  These  are  among  the  facts  that  we 
ought  to  know,  as  we  ought  to  know  the  reasons  underlying 
them.  We  ought  to  know  why  Serbia  has  been  the  focus  for 
the  persistent  hates  of  tyrants,  why  she  has  now  been  singled 
out  for  destruction,  and  as  a  prelude  to  the  destruction  of 
human  freedom,  why  her  soil  was  the  first  to  be  ravaged,  and 
her  people  the  first  to  be  so  tortured  and  enslaved.  Serbia  is 
now  the  ally  of  America  in  the  greatest  war  that  has  ever  been 
waged,  and  an  ally  of  which  America  needs  not  be  ashamed. 
For  Serbia  is  old  and  worn  in  the  struggle  for  human  liberty. 
For  one  thousand  years  she  has  known  nothing  else.  It  is  her 
habit  to  fight  for  freedom.  Her  history  is  one  long  story  of 
resistance  to  tyranny,  and  of  the  vengeances  that  tyranny 
has  wreaked  upon  her. 

To  understand  why  Serbia  was  placed  in  the  forefront  of 
the  present  struggle  it  is  necessary  to  glance  at  the  two  lines  of 
national  policy,  the  Austrian  and  the  German,  that  converged 
upon  this  one  little  Balkan  state.  Those  two  lines  of  policy 
originated  in  the  definite  and  distinctive  greeds,  ambitions 
and  fears  of  the  Teutonic  Empires,  but  they  approach  each 


22  FRANCO-SERBIAN     FIELD     HOSPITAL 

other  and  gradually  become  entwined  in  the  events  of  the 
fateful  years  preceding  the  war.  It  is  to  them  and  to  them 
alone,  that  we  must  look  for  an  explanation  of  the  war,  which 
thus  loses  the  quality  of  the  unforeseen  and  the  unpremeditated 
ascribed  to  it  in  the  popular  mind.  In  that  light  it  becomes 
the  intended  and  the  calculated  culmination  of  forty  years 
of  sinister  diplomacy  and  intrigue. 

Let  us  look  first  at  the  share  of  Austria  in  the  production 
of  this  world  calamity  that  has  now  engulfed  America.  Un- 
fortunately, it  is  a  share  of  which  we  here  in  America  have  only 
the  vaguest  conception.  To  us  Serbia  is  no  more  than  a 
Balkan  state  of  insignificant  geographical  dimensions,  the 
scene  of  constant  turmoil,  and  associated  with  national  feuds 
with  which  we  have  not  even  cared  to  acquaint  ourselves.  But 
Serbia  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  Hapsburg  monarchy  is 
something  far  more  than  this.  Serbia  is  the  leader  of  the 
great  Slav  movement  of  Southern  Europe.  To  the  28,000,000 
Slavs  of  the  Austrian  Empire  she  appeals  as  the  representative 
of  their  nationality,  and  as  the  hope  of  their  coming  enfran- 
chisement and  independence. 

The  Austrian  Empire  consists  of  four  races.  The  Germanic 
people  in  Austria  number  12,000,000.  The  Latin  races,  com- 
prising Italians  and  Roumanians,  are  represented  by  4,000,000 
people.  There  are  10,000,000  Magyars  originally  of  Asiatic 
origin,  and  there  are  28,000,000  Slavs,  sometimes  known  as 
Czechs,  Slovaks,  Poles,  Ruthenes,  Slovenes  and  Serbo-Croats. 
All  of  these  peoples,  by  whatever  other  names  they  may  be 
known,  are  actually  and  practically  identical,  however  much 
it  may  suit  the  policy  of  Austria  to  represent  them  as  separate 
and  distinct  nationalities.  They  are  substantially  the  same 
in  language,  tradition,  sympathy  and  aspiration.  They  are 
not  acquiescent  parts  of  the  Austrian  Empire.  On  the  con- 
trary they  are  enemies  of  the  Austrian  Empire  and  its  victims, 
hating  the  yoke  that  binds  them  to  that  Empire,  despising  the 
Germans  and  the  Magyars  to  whom  they  are  immeasurably 
superior  in  virtue  and  intelligence,  and  looking  forward  with 
unquenchable  hope  to  their  ultimate  assimilation  by  Serbia 
into  one  unified  Southern  Slav  State.  The  German  and  Magyar 
elements,  on  their  part,  have  returned  the  hate  with  interest, 
and  have  tried  to  ward  off  the  danger  of  disintegration  by 


TRAGEDY     OF    A     NATION  23 

persistent  repressive  measures  that  have  never  been  surpassed 
in  their  brutal  ferocity.  There  is  no  more  shameful  page  in 
human  history  than  this,  nor  one  more  full  of  a  concentrated 
and  sustained  cruelty.  The  Germans  and  the  Magyars  of 
the  Austrian  Empire  represent  a  feudal  aristocracy  that  has 
all  the  worst  attributes  of  Prussianism.  The  Slavs  of  the 
Austrian  Empire  represent  a  conquered  but  still  dangerous 
people,  dangerous  by  their  numbers,  and  by  the  steady  perse- 
verance of  their  hopes  of  liberation,  and  of  an  independent 
union  with  Serbia. 

Small  wonder,  then,  that  Serbia  should  be  an  object  of 
dread  and  suspicion  to  the  dominant  Teutonic  and  Magyar 
elements  of  the  Austrian  Empire.  The  continuing  sovereignty 
of  Serbia  meant  the  perpetual  proclamation  of  free  ideals,  the 
perpetual  contagion  of  democratic  institutions.  The  Slavs  of 
Austria  could  never  become  abject  or  acquiescent  to  tyranny  so 
long  as  Serbia  held  aloft  the  banner  of  national  life  as  a  summons 
and  an  inspiration  to  her  brethren  under  the  Austrian  scourge. 

The  obliteration  of  Serbia  as  a  sovereign  state  thus  became 
the  cardinal  principle  of  Austrian  policies.  At  once  we  begin 
to  understand  the  events  that  followed  the  assassination  of 
the  Archduke,  and  which  we  are  now  disposed  to  regard  as  a 
pretext  rather  than  as  a  cause.  Apply  this  cardinal  principle, 
the  extinction  and  destruction  of  Serbia,  to  all  the  obscure 
problems  of  Austrian  policies  for  forty  years,  and  it  will  solve 
them  all.  Never  did  Rome  look  forward  to  the  ruin  of 
Carthage  with  half  the  concentrated  and  sustained  malice 
that  Austria  directed  toward  Serbia. 

Again  and  again  we  find  the  expression  of  that  destructive 
and  malignant  hate.  We  find  Austria  intervening  at  the  end 
of  the  first  Balkan  war  in  order  to  deprive  Serbia  of  her  legiti- 
mate gains,  and  in  order  to  rehabilitate  the  Turk.  Here 
Austria  had  no  lawful  self-interest  to  serve,  no  honest  policy 
to  further.  But  Serbia  at  all  costs  must  be  thwarted,  abashed 
and  terrorized.  The  direct  and  intended  result  of  Austria's 
action  was  to  alienate  Serbia  and  Bulgaria,  to  deprive  Serbia 
of  the  advantages  of  her  victory  over  the  Turks,  to  break  up 
the  hegemony  of  the  Balkan  States  and  to  isolate  Serbia  within 
a  circle  of  enemies.  It  was  Austria,  and  Austria  alone,  that 
produced  the  second  Balkan  war,  with  its  revival  of  Turkish 


24  FRANCO-SERBIAN     FIELD     HOSPITAL 


misrule  in  Europe,  and  the  resulting  conflagration  of  rival 
passions  in  the  Balkans.  It  was  a  step  in  the  undeviating 
policy  that  has  been  outlined,  an  integral  part  of  the  plan  by 
which  Austria  intended  to  relieve  herself  from  the  menace  and 
the  contagion  of  Serbian  liberty  and  of  the  Slav  ideal.  It  was 
a  link  in  the  chain  that  led  inevitably  to  the  war  —  that  was 
intended  to  lead  to  the  war. 

To  indicate  all  the  links  in  that  fatal  chain  would  be  to 
write  the  history  of  Eastern  Europe  for  forty  years.  It  must 
suffice  to  point  out  some  few  of  the  more  important.  It  was 
this  same  policy  that  led  Austria  to  violate  the  Triple  Alliance 
on  the  occasion  of  the  war  between  Italy  and  Turkey,  and  to 
throw  the  whole  of  her  passive  weight  into  the  scales  against 
her  ally,  Italy,  and  on  the  side  of  Turkey,  the  age-long  enemy 
of  Serbia.  No  treaty  could  be  allowed  to  interfere  with  that 
policy.  No  consideration  of  right  and  wrong  could  ever  be 
permitted  so  stand  between  Austria  and  her  prey.  The 
destruction  of  Serbia  had  become  a  sort  of  monomania. 

We  now  come  to  a  point  immediately  preceding  the  out- 
break of  the  war,  and  to  a  secret  page  of  history,  that,  but  for 
the  war,  might  never  have  been  divulged.  It  is  sufficiently 
outlined  by  the  speech  made  by  the  Italian  premier  before  the 
Italian  Parliament.  Austria,  he  said  in  effect,  had  pleaded  the 
assassination  of  the  Archduke  as  the  reason  for  her  ultimatum 
to  Serbia,  and  for  her  hostile  acts  against  Serbia.  But,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  Austria  had  proposed  a  war  against  Serbia  a 
year  before  that  assassination  had  occurred,  and  Italy,  as  a 
member  of  the  Triple  Alliance,  had  refused  to  sanction  it. 
Austria  had  advanced  no  valid  reason  for  such  an  act  of  ag- 
gression against  Serbia,  who  was  wholly  innocent  of  any  pro- 
vocation or  offense.  The  veto  of  Italy  withheld  Austria  from 
the  accomplishment  of  her  designs  at  that  time,  and  she  was 
compelled  to  await  a  new  opportunity. 

The  new  opportunity  was  not  for  long  delayed.  It  was 
furnished  by  the  assassination  of  the  Archduke,  a  crime  of 
which  Serbia  was  as  completely  innocent  as  California.  It  was 
committed  by  Austrian  subjects,  and  upon  Austrian  soil.  The 
criminals  had  been  in  Serbia  shortly  before  the  tragedy  was 
enacted,  and  the  Serbian  authorities,  suspecting  the  nature  of 
their  intentions,  had  ordered  their  expulsion,  but  the  order  was 


TRAGEDY     OF     A     NATION  25 

'not  carried  into  effect  owing  to  the  protest  of  the  Austrian 
embassy,  which  took  these  suspected  persons  under  its  protection. 
Serbia  disavowed  all  complicity  in  the  crime,  and  Austria  was 
unable  to  advance  any  valid  evidence  of  her  responsibility  or 
connivance.  But  innocence  was  of  no  avail  against  such  accusers 
as  these.  It  was  the  old  story  of  the  wolf  and  the  lamb.  Serbia 
had  already  lain  under  sentence  of  death  for  forty  years,  and 
now  at  last  had  come  the  pretext  for  its  execution.  If  that 
pretext  had  failed,  some  other  would  have  been  found.  Austria 
would  wait  no  longer.  Moreover,  Germany  was  now  hailing 
the  dawn  of  Der  Tag.  She,  too,  was  ready  for  the  assault  upon 
Serbia  in  pursuance  of  her  own  distinctive  policy  that  was  now 
inextricably  blended  with  that  of  the  sister  Teutonic  Empire. 
No  wonder  Karl  Liebknecht  should  say  in  the  German  Reichstag 
that  the  assassination  of  the  Archduke  was  hailed  in  high 
German  circles  as  a  providential  act.  No  wonder  that  there 
should  be  something  more  than  a  suspicion  that  Austria  not 
only  intended  the  crime,  but  that  she  initiated  the  means  of  its 
accomplishment.  For  the  profit  of  that  crime  was  hers.  It 
gave  her  the  opportunity  and  the  pretext  to  crush  Serbia,  and 
so  to  invoke  success  upon  the  policy  that  she  had  pursued 
undeviatingly  for  forty  years. 

Let  us  glance  now  for  a  moment  at  the  policy  of  Germany 
which  thus  found  itself  in  full  accord  with  that  of  Austria.  If 
Serbia  was  a  threat  to  Austrian  domination  of  the  Slav  peoples 
at  home  and  abroad,  she  was  no  less  of  a  threat  to  the  German 
hope  of  an  Asiatic  Empire  and  of  world  power.  The  German 
Emperor  soon  after  his  accession  to  the  throne  had  effected  an 
alliance  with  the  Sultan  of  Turkey,  and  had  declared  himself 
the  protector  and  the  friend  of  all  Mohammedan  peoples 
throughout  the  world.  He  had  obtained  from  the  Sultan  a 
concession  for  a  railroad  that  was  to  run  from  Constantinople 
through  Asia  Minor  and  Mesopotamia  to  Bagdad,  to  the 
frontiers  of  Egypt,  and  to  the  shores  of  the  Persian  Gulf.  It 
was  to  be  a  military  railroad.  There  was  no  concealment  about 
that,  no  attempt  to  hide  the  purpose  to  which  it  was  to  be  put. 
Connecting  at  Constantinople  with  the  great  International 
Railroad  through  Europe,  it  was  to  enable  Germany  to  send 
her  armed  legions,  almost  without  change  of  train  from  Hamburg 
to  Egypt  and  India.  That  a  war  for  the  conquest  of  Asia 


26  FRANCO-SERBIAN     FIELD     HOSPITAL 

meant  also  a  war  for  the  conquest  of  Europe  was  fully  rec- 
ognized in  the  German  scheme.  France  and  Italy  with  their 
Mohammedan  territories,  Great  Britan  with  India,  Russia  with 
her  Persian  interests,  could  never  permit  so  tremendous  an 
incitement  to  the  fierce  and  fanatical  Moslem  world.  They 
could  not  remain  indifferent  to  so  vast  a  threat  to  the  stability 
of  civilization.  Even  China  would  be  affected,  nor  need  we 
forget  that  America  herself  has  Mohammedans  under  her  flag. 
But  Germany  intended  to  fight  the  world.  Hers  was  no  leap 
in  the  dark.  Bernhardi  had  supplied  the  watchword  of 
"Weltmacht  oder  Niedergang,"  thus  following  his  master 
Treitschke.  It  had  become  the  watchword  of  the  German 
people;  and  Europe  and  America  were  asleep  and  refused  to  wake. 
Trace  the  map  of  that  railroad  for  yourselves.  Leaving 
Germany  it  passes  through  Vienna  and  Buda  Pesth,  and  thus 
becomes  a  knot  in  the  Pan-German  union  between  Germany 
and  Austria.  And  then  it  traverses  Northern  Serbia,  and 
through  the  Serbian  city  to  Nish.  Thence  it  passes  through 
Bulgaria,  and  through  Turkey  to  Adrianople  and  Constantinople, 
and  so  into  Asia  Minor.  It  was  to  be  the  broad  military  high- 
road over  which  the  Teuton  armies  were  to  march  to  world 
dominion.  That  the  Bagdad  railroad  was  actually  intended 
for  such  a  purpose  is  not  a  matter  of  speculation.  The  intention 
was  trumpeted  forth  to  the  world.  Germany  in  this  respect 
had  at  least .  the  merit  of  a  certain  tremendous  frankness. 
Certain  of  her  strength  she  made  no  effort  to  hide  the  uses  to 
which  it  was  to  be  put. 

But  there  was  a  weak  link  in  that  railroad  chain,  and  that 
weak  link  was  Serbia.  Turkey  was  already  an  ally  of  Germany 
and  could  be  trusted.  Bulgaria,  too,  was  an  ally,  or  could 
easily  be  made  one  by  bribes  or  threats.  Moreover,  Bulgaria 
was  now  a  deadly  enemy  of  Serbia  through  Austrian  intrigues, 
and  would  naturally  gravitate  toward  any  camp  that  was 
hostile  to  Serbia. 

Serbia,  then,  was  the  weak  link,  and  in  such  a  railroad  chain 
as  that,  and  one  dedicated  to  such  ends,  there  must  be  no  weak 
link.  A  hostile  Serbia  might  mean  the  cutting  of  that  chain 
at  the  moment  of  greatest  tension.  And  Serbia  was  certain  to 
be  hostile  to  any  Teutonic  scheme  which  involved  the  further 
extension  of  Austrian  power  over  the  Slav  peoples.  Austria 


TRAGEDY     OF    A     NATION  27 

had  already  seized  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina  with  their  Serbian 
populations.  Her  designs  against  Serbia  herself  were  hardly 
matters  of  doubt.  Serbia  would  never  tolerate  the  passage 
through  her  territories,  through  her  city  of  Nish,  of  Teuton 
armies  bound  on  a  mission  of  Asiatic,  and  then  of  world  domi- 
nation. Germany  knew  well  that  the  Bagdad  railroad  would 
be  no  more  than  a  rope  of  sand  in  her  grasp  so  long  as  any  portion 
of  that  railroad  was  in  Serbian  hands.  And  so  Germany  had 
decreed  the  extinction  of  Serbia,  and  she  found  a  ready  ac- 
complice in  Austria,  whose  schemes  thus  ran  parallel  with  her 
own. 

Such,  in  brief  outline,  was  the  position  occupied  by  Serbia 
in  the  broad  stream  of  Teutonic  policies  that  ran  straight  on  to 
the  precipice  of  war.  On  the  one  hand  we  have  the  Teutonic 
intention  to  dominate  the  world.  On  the  other,  we  have  the 
tiny  kingdom  of  Serbia  blocking  the  Teutonic  path  to  Asia,  a 
perpetual  menace  to  tyranny,  and  with  the  record  of  five 
hundred  years  to  sustain  that  menace.  It  was  a  picture  as 
dramatic  as  any  picture  the  world  has  ever  seen,  and  the  world 
is  now  paying  in  blood  and  anguish  for  its  blindness  to  a  drama 
that  was  ostentatiously  unfolded  before  her  eyes  for  forty  years. 

Serbia  is  a  long  way  off,  and  to  many  Americans  she  has 
been  little  more  than  a  name.  None  the  less,  she  is  the  center 
of  the  world  war.  Every  gun  fired  in  that  war,  whether  it  be 
on  the  Atlantic,  at  Verdun,  or  on  Russia's  northernmost  battle 
.line,  is  a  gun  fired  either  in  defense  of  Serbia  or  in  attack  upon 
her.  If  the  Central  Powers  should  emerge  from  the  war  with 
the  secured  domination  of  Serbia,  then  the  Central  Powers  will 
have  won  the  war,  and  the  road  to  world  domination  will  be 
open  to  them.  No  matter  what  evacuations  there  may  be 
elsewhere,  no  matter  what  indemnities  they  may  pay,  no  matter 
how  far  they  consent  to  the  ratification  of  other  frontiers,  they 
will  still  have  won  the  war  if  they  are  allowed  directly  or  in- 
directly to  tamper  with  the  sovereignty  of  Serbia. 

Therefore,  it  may  be  said  once  more  that  it  is  not  charity 
that  we  owe  to  Serbia,  but  gratitude.  In  very  truth  she  stood, 
and  still  stands,  between  America  and  that  vast  Teutonic  power 
that  has  included  America  in  its  scheme  of  world  domination. 
If  that  power  should  succeed  in  the  subjugation  of  Serbia,  it 
will  have  taken  its  first  triumphant  step  along  that  path  which 


28 FRANCO-SERBIAN     FIELD     HOSPITAL 

must  ultimately  and  even  speedily  be  barred  by  America  alone, 
and  in  defense  of  her  liberties,  and  even  of  her  right  to  exist  as 
a  nation.  There  is  no  room  in  the  world  for  Americanism*  and 
for  Prussianism.  The  waters  of  the  Atlantic  are  not  deep 
enough  to  separate  their  rivalries.  If  they  should  ever  find 
themselves  alone  in  the  amphitheater  of  war,  no  man  in  America 
will  be  exempted  either  by  youth  or  by  age  or  by  physical 
infirmities  from  bearing  his  part  in  such  a  struggle  for  national 
survival. 


TRAGEDY     OF     A     NATION  29 

SERBIA 
The  Poor  Man's   Paradise 

By  Herbert  yioian,  M.  A. 
Written  before  21  years,  1897. 

waste  serious  thought  upon  the  sordid  squabbles 
of  corrupt  republics  across  the  Channel  and  the 
Ocean,  we  shed  mawkish  tears  over  the  punishment 
of  financial  intrigues  in  Armenia  and  the  Transvall,  and  we 
compass  sea  and  land  to  gather  a  precarious  interest  for  plethoric 
capital  amid  fever-swamps,  wild  beast,  and  wilder  man. 

"Meanwhile  we  do  not  seem  to  suspect  that  within  little 
more  than  two  days'  rail  from  our  capital,  there  lies  an  unde- 
veloped country  of  extraordinary  fertility  and  potential  wealth, 
possessing  a  history  more  wonderful  than  any  fairy  tale,  and  a 
race  of  heroes  and  patriots  who  may  one  day  set  Europe  by 
the  ears. 

"The  Serbians  have  said  to  me,  over  and  over  again,  'We 
want  merely  justice;  relate  only  what  you  have  seen.'  To  which 
I  have  replied,  'My  good  people,  if  I  related  only  one-half  of 
all  the  wonderful  things  I  have  seen,  not  a  soul  in  England 
would  believe  me.  I  should  be  told  I  had  written,  not  about 
Serbia,  but  about  Atlantis,  or  Utopia.' 

"I  have,  therefore,  taken  pains  to  curb  my  enthusiasm,  and 
have  availed  myself  of  moments  of  depression  to  dilute  the 
rose-color  which  plays  upon  this  smiling  land.  If  I  have  re- 
mained too  optimistic,  the  fault  is  not  mine;  for  until  I  saw 
Serbia,  I  disbelieved  in  modern  nations.  The  blame,  if  any 
there  be,  must  be  laid  at  the  door  of  the  strange  little  kingdom 
which  has  no  poor  within  its  borders,  where  good  humor  is 
chronic  and  hospitality  universal. 

"In  any  case,  she  is  a  dainty  miniature  and  cannot  fail  to 
please  the  eye  of  an  artist. 

"Beautiful  Serbia!  My  soul  will  always  linger  amid  the 
rapture  of  thy  purple  hills. 

"The  particular  opportunity,  however,  is  for  the  small 
capitalist  with  a  few  thousands,  or  even  a  few  hundreds,  which 


30  FRANCO-SERBIAN     FIELD     HOSPITAL 


avail  their  possessors  very  little  in  England,  but  which  with  a 
little  effort  and  judgment  would  assure  a  handsome  competency 
in  Serbia.  "What  to  do  with  our  sons"  is  a  favorite  problem 
with  us.  I  solve  it  by  replying:  "Send  them  out  to  the  Balkan 
States  where  they  shall  be  happy  and  wealthy,  and  wise." 
****** 

"Serbia  is  essentially  an  agricultural  country.  Nine-tenths 
of  her  population  are  employed  on  the  land,  and  more  than 
nine-tenths  of  her  wealth  is  derived  directly  from  it.  The  typical 
Serbian  is  first  and  last  a  peasant-proprietor. 

"Whatever  our  views  may  be  about  peasant-proprietors  in 
general,  there  is  no  room  for  doubt  about  their  unvarying 
prosperity  in  this  particular  Peasant-State.  In  Serbia,  there  is 
not,  I  think,  a  single  millionaire,  even  in  dinars,  (one  dinar  is 
20  cents),  and  an  income  of  200L  or  300L  a  year,  implies  af- 
fluence, almost  wealth;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  such  emblems 
of  civilization  as  rags,  hunger  and  homelessness  are  unknown. 
If  industry  and  commerce  are  checked  by  the  absence  of  capi- 
talists, the  greatest  good  of  the  greatest  number  is  undoubtedly 
attained  by  the  corresponding  absence  of  the  poor,  whom  we 
have  always  with  us  in  more  modern  States.  The  Serbian 
peasant  nearly  always  has  more  land  than  he  can  cultivate; 
he  can  boast  of  savings,  either  banked  in  an  old  stocking, 
exhibited  in  the  headgear  of  his  womenfolk,  or  capitalized  in 
the  form  of  gold  embroideries;  and  nothing  will  ever  induce 
them  to  go  into  dependence.  There  are  no  Serbian  servants. 
Belgrade  must  import  from  Hungary,  Austria,  Germany  and 
even  Italy.  If  you  find  servants  of  Serbian  race,  you  may  be 
sure  they  are  either  foreign  subjects  or  have  been  recently 
naturalized. 

"To  sum  up  the  Serbian  peasant:  His  character  is  the  legi- 
timate offspring  of  his  surroundings  and  his  history.  The 
struggles  of  centuries  imbued  him  with  a  dogged  determination 
almost  amounting  to  obstinacy;  but  his  smiling  land  has  filled 
his  soul  with  smiles.  He  is  always  cheerful  and  contented; 
his  hospitality  is  boundless;  his  sweet  simplicity  is  patriarchal. 

"Everyone  in  Serbia  is  the  soul  of  hospitality,  and  a  traveller 
in  the  country  districts  is  welcomed  and  feasted  in  a  manner 
altogether  overwhelming. 


TRAGEDY     OF     A     NATION  31 

"For  my  part,  I  am  more  inclined  to  compare  the  Serbians 
to  the  Irish,  but  for  the  fact  that  the  former  have  no  poor  and 
are  eminently  practical.  They  have  humor  and  good  humor; 
they  cherish  that  dreamy  melancholy  which  is  begotten  by 
centuries  of  subjection;  they  place  themselves  with  all  they 
possess  at  your  disposal,  and,  what  is  more,  they  mean  it; 
they  know  instinctively  what  will  please  you  most,  and  the 
right  moment  to  say  it;  their  patriotism  is  vehement  and  dis- 
interested, almost  quixotic  even;  they  are,  every  one  of  them, 
keen  politicians,  and  they  accept  much  political  direction  from 
their  priesthood.  Might  not  all  this  be  said  equally  of  the 
Irish?  What  strikes  a  stranger  most  about  the  Serbians,  as 
about  the  Irish,  is  perhaps  a  certain  child-like  simplicity: 
They  are  easily  amused  and  excited,  they  hate  and  love  with  so 
much  emphasis,  their  character  is  so  delightfully  free  from 
complexity." 


32  FRANCO-SERBIAN     FIELD     HOSPITAL 

MEMORANDUM 

By  The 

SERBIAN  SOCIALIST 
PARTY 

UPON  THE  CONDITIONS  IN 
OCCUPIED  SERBIA 


Presented  To  The 

Russo  -  Hollando  -  Scandinavian   Committee 
in   Stockholm 


With  A   Preface  By  Camille   Huysmans, 
Secretary  of  The  International  Socialist  Bureau. 


TRAGEDY     OF     A     NATION  33 

932  Southern  Building, 

Washington,  D.  C. 

March  15,  1918. 

THE  following  appeal  is  signed  by  two  eye-witnesses  of 
the  infamous  acts  of  the  Austro-Bulgarians  in  the  oc- 
cupied territory  of  Serbia.  The  first  of  these,  Dushan 
Popovitch,  permanent  secretary  of  the  Serbian  Socialist  party, 
has  not  left  Serbia  and  since  the  evacuation  of  1915,  he  was 
able  to  see,  on  the  spot,  all  that  the  invaders  have  done  to 
exterminate  an  entire  people.  The  second,  Katzlerovitch,  is 
a  deputy  of  the  Socialist  party.  He  took  part  in  the  retreat 
through  Albania  but  after  arriving  in  Switzerland  he  decided 
to  return  to  Serbia.  The  Austro-Hungarian  Legation  at  Berne, 
accorded  him  every  facility  and  in  the  month  of  June,  1916, 
he  left  for  Kraguevatz  in  Serbia.  M.  Katzlerovitch  is  a  Serbian 
"Zimmerwaldian"  and  before  returning  to  Serbia  he  had  vio- 
lently attacked  the  Serbian  Government  and  Parliament, 
demanding  an  immediate  peace.  The  Wolff  Agency  hastened 
to  reproduce  their  attacks  and  exploit  them  against  Serbia. 
M.  Katzlerovitch  is  therefore  a  witness  particularly  qualified 
to  tell  the  truth  regarding  the  horrors  of  the  Austro-Bulgarian 
regime. 

"Messrs.  Popovitch  and  Katzlerovitch  went  from  Serbia  to 
Stockholm  for  the  Socialist  conference.  The  Central  Powers 
believed  that  the  two  Serbian  socialists  would  play  the  game 
of  the  internationalists  and  that  is  why  they  permitted  them 
to  go  to  Stockholm.  There  the  Serbian  delegates,  once  they 
had  escaped  from  the  Austro-Germans,  drew  up  this  appeal  to 
the  civilized  world,  to  protest  against  the  regime  of  exter- 
mination practiced  in  Serbia.  They  handed  it  in  the  month 
of  November  to  M.  Camille  Huysmans,  who,  in  making  it 
public,  thus  described  it  in  his  introduction:  "It  is  not  a  work 
of  hate;  it  is  a  cry  of  distress." 

In  view  of  the  documentary  value  of  this  memorandum,  we 
publish  it  in  its  full  form,  regardless  of  the  fact  that  we  do  not 
share  the  political  ideas  expressed  on  this  occasion  by  the 
Serbian  Socialist  Party.  As  to  the  behavior  of  the  German 
troops  in  Serbia,  described  by  Messrs.  Popovitch  and  Katzlero- 
vitch as  having  been  less  barbourous  than  the  Bulgarian  and 


34  FRANCO-SERBIAN     FIELD     HOSPITAL 

the  Austro-Hungarian,  we  make  a  point  of  issuing  herewith  an 
account  of  the  German  military  expedition  in  Serbia,  by  Oskar 
Maurus  Fontana,  a  German  writer  and  a  Reserve  Officer  who 
accompanied  the  German  army  to  Serbia. 

SERBIAN  PRESS  BUREAU. 


PREFACE. 

The  war  has  made  three  martyr  nations:  the  Belgians, 
the  Serbs  and  the  Armenians  of  Turkey. 

Germany  has  martyred  Belgium;  Austria-Hungary  and 
Bulgaria  have  martyred  Serbia. 

Turkey  has  martyred  Armenia. 

In  all  three  countries  the  aggressor  has  attacked  an  in- 
offensive and  defenseless  population. 

In  Belgium  he  has  put  to  the  sword  hundreds  of  unarmed 
men,  women  and  children. 

In  Serbia,  he  has  been  even  more  pitiless.  He  has  claimed 
his  victims  by  the  thousand. 

In  Armenia,  his  bestiality  has  known  no  bounds.  He  has 
killed  with  Sadie  fury. 

Belgium  has  lost  many  civilians  and  will  lose  yet  more 
under  a  regime  of  insufficient  feeding  and  unendurable  op- 
pression. 

Serbia  has  lost  practically  the  half  of  her  population,  and 
unless  immediate  help  is  forthcoming,  men,  women  and  children 
will  die  like  flies. 

Armenia,  alas,  cannot  count  the  number  of  her  victims. 
Will  she  ever  after  the  War  be  able  to  make  a  list  of  those  who 
survived  and  were  reduced  to  slavery? 

The  methods  of  murder  and  destruction  have  been  applied 
with  greater  brutality  and  shamelessness  in  proportion  as  one 
neared  the  East,  where  human  life  is  held  comparatively  cheap. 

The  objects  of  the  aggressor  were  not  the  same  in  each  case. 

The  generous  Germany  of  Luther  certainly  did  not  desire 
to  exterminate  the  Belgians.  To  begin  with,  the  latter  are  too 
numerous!  But  she  wanted  to  punish  them  for  their  unexpected 
resistance.  She  was  not  a  secular  enemy.  But  she  had  re- 


TRAGEDY     OF     A     NATION  35 

course  to  blood  letting  in  order  to  terrorize  the  vanquished 
and  to  teach  them  docility  for  the  future. 

Catholic  Austria  has  done  nothing  but  carry  on  her  tra- 
ditional policy.  Her  aggression  of  yesterday  was  not  accidental. 
During  the  whole  of  the  1 9th  Century,  she  has  never  ceased  to 
attack  a  young  and  gallant  people,  simply  because  it  is  conscious 
of  its  national  strength.  And  the  slaughter  was  compassed  with 
the  clear  purpose  of  total  destruction.  In  the  Imperial  Army, 
it  was  the  Serbs  of  Austria  who  were  always  sent  for  preference 
into  the  fire,  because  one  wanted  to  get  rid  of  them  —  and  the 
Serbs  of  Serbia  have  been  starved  or  hanged,  interned  or  put  in 
chains  with  cynically  refined  cruelty. 

And  the  kindred  Bulgars  belonging  to  the  ruling  circles 
have  helped  the  Austrians  in  this  monstrous  task!  They  desired 
to  be  revenged  for  past  defeats  and  they  have  remained  deaf 
to  the  voice  of  the  blood. 

The  Sons  of  the  Prophet  pursued  an  indentical  aim.  They, 
too,  desired  the  extermination  of  a  people.  And,  we  must 
admit  it,  they  have  accomplished  it  conscientiously,  like  ex- 
perienced scavengers.  They  have  spared  nothing.  They  have 
considered  neither  age  nor  sex.  They  have  made  a  clean  sweep. 
They  have  carried  out  Sultan  Selim's  command  to  the  letter. 
To  violence  to  the  men  they  have  added  bestiality  to  women 
and  even  to  children.  And  the  Christians  of  Germany  have 
watched  unmoved,  this  slaughter  of  the  Christians  of  Armenia. 

While  attacking  the  human  beings  the  invador  has  not 
forgotten  inanimate  objects.  He  has  sought  to  ruin  the  victim 
of  the  occupation  economically.  He  has  taken  his  food.  He 
has  taken  away  his  machinery.  He  has  deprived  him  of  the 
primary  necessities.  And  he  has  crowned  everything  by  the 
deportation  of  labour. 

One  would  think  that  the  General  Headquarters  of  the 
Turks,  Austrians  and  Germans  were  acting  by  agreement. 

And  how  have  they  justified  these  abominations? 

In  Belgium,  they  invented  the  legend  of  the  francfireurs. 

In  Armenia,  they  invented  the  legend  of  conspiracies. 

In  Serbia,  the  Austrians  invented  nothing.  They  have  too 
much  imagination  to  delight  in  the  clumsy  pseudo-scientific 
imaginations  of  the  German  Government.  Since  the  days  of 
the  Agram  trial  they  have  acquired  too  much  experience  to 


36  FRANCO-SERBIAN     FIELD     HOSPITAL 

re-edit  a  subterfuge  which  brought  upon  them  the  moral  censure 
of  the  whole  of  Europe.  They  have  acted  boldly,  without 
hypocrisy  and,  taking  it  all  round,  this  attitude  strikes  us  as 
being  the  most  decent.  They  have  the  courage  of  their  crimes. 

I  do  not  mean  to  hold  the  peoples  of  Germany,  of  Austria- 
Hungary,  of  Bulgaria  and  Turkey  responsible  for  all  this.  I 
know  what  protests  have  rung  through  the  Parliaments  of 
Berlin,  of  Vienna,  of  Budapest  and  Sofia.  I  am  convinced 
that  thousands  of  Mussulmans  condemn  the  policy  of  the 
Young  Turks,  and  if  proof  is  required,  I  need  only  quote  the 
touching  pamphlet  by  Fayez  El-Gosein,  a  Bedouin  of  Hauran. 
But  what  matters  is  that  the  Socialists  at  least,  of  the  Central 
Empires,  should  know  and  should  act.  And  that  is  why 
my  Serbian  and  American  comrades  have  judged  it  useful  to 
do  as  we  have  done  in  Belgium.  To  what  is  left  of  the  civilized 
world  they  denounce  what  has  been  done  and  is  being  done 
and  they  appeal  at  least  to  the  solidarity  of  those  who  lay  claim 
to  spare  their  ideals  of  humanity  and  justice. 

And  if  they  are  told  in  reply  that  also  on  the  other  side  of 
the  barricade  there  are  deplorable  conditions.  If  they  are  told 
in  reply,  as  I  have  already  been  told,  that  prisoners  have  been 
ill-treated  elsewhere,  we  shall  declare  very  clearly,  that  the 
Socialist  protest  must  regard  the  misdeeds  of  one  side  as  well 
as  the  crimes  of  the  other.  As  for  me,  I  refuse  to  admit  the 
axiom:  "Krieg  ist  Krieg",  "War  is  War."  This  phrase  is 
nothing  but  a  covert  form  of  moral  cowardice. 

The  Socialists  have  no  right  to  take  no  interest  in  the  fate 
of  other  human  beings. 

For  this  reason  I  thank  my  friends  Popovitch,  Secretary  of 
the  Serbian  Socialist  Party,  and  Katzlerovitch,  Deputy  in  the 
Skupshtina,  for  having  written  this  phamphlet,  which  is  ad- 
dressed to  public  opinion,  without  distinction 

It  is  not  a  work  of  hate, 
It  is  a  cry  of  distress! 

Stockholm,  December  10th,  1917. 
CAMILLE  HUYSMANS, 

Secretary  of  (he  International  Socialist  Bureau. 


TRAGEDY     OF     A     NATION  37 

MEMORANDUM 

By  The  Serbian  Socialist  Party 
Upon  The  Situation  In  Occupied  Serbia 

'Presented  To  The 
Russo-Hollando-Scandinavian    Committee 

Opinions  as  to  the  culpability  of  Serbia  in  the  present  war 
are  divided  according  to  whether  the  holders  of  these  opinions 
belong  to  one  or  the  other  of  the  two  belligerent  and  enemy 
camps.  But  what  is  past  all  discussion  for  both  parties  is  that 
Serbia  is  one  of  the  most  sorely-tried  victims  of  the  world  war. 
The  burden  of  the  war  as  it  has  fallen  upon  this  small  and  weak 
country  is  so  crushing  and  so  bloody  that  there  is  no  longer  any 
equitable  proportion  between  crime  and  punishment,  even  if 
we  assume  that  Serbia  had  committed  the  gravest  faults.  Still 
less  can  one  take  up  this  view  if  one  takes  into  account  that 
during  the  whole  of  last  century  the  Serbian  nation  — 
an  abstraction  constructedof  secondary  factors  and  responsibilities 
in  the  third  degree  —  was  in  a  state  of  legitimate  defense 
against  the  brutal  policy  of  conquest  on  the  part  of  a 
great  reactionary  neighbouring  State,  namely  Austria. 

The  whole  world  is  more  or  less  aware  of  the  great  distress 
into  which  Serbia  has  been  plunged  by  the  war,  and  of  the 
sacrifices  entailed  upon  her  by  the  latter.  But  what  is  known 
of  it  is  very  superficial  and  incomplete.  The  object  of  our 
memorandum  is  to  complete  this  general  information  by  facts 
and  data  collected  in  occupied  Serbia,  in  order  to  show  the 
pressing  need  of  speedy  and  efficacious  help,  both  material  and 
moral  for  this  country  cut  off  from  all  the  world  and  forsaken 
by  it. 

On   The  Eve  of  the  Occupation  and  During  The 
Catastrophe. 

Serbia  had  already  suffered  great  losses  since  the  first  year 
of  the  war.  During  the  very  first  months  of  the  war  she  had 
to  repel  two  great  Austrian  offensives,  one  in  September,  and 
one  in  November,  1914.  Twice  the  existence  of  Serbia  hung 
only  by  a  thread  and  twice  she  parried  the  mortal  blow.  But 


38 


FRANCO-SERBIAN     FIELD     HOSPITAL 


these  events  entailed  enormous  losses  as  well  among  the  soldiers 
as  among  the  civil  population.  Appalled  by  the  horrors  of 
the  first  Austro-Hungarian  invasion  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
the  town  of  Shabatz  and  in  order  to  escape  from  the  enemy 
troops  which  were  steadily  venturing  further,  Serbian  families 
were  compelled  to  fly  wholesale  at  an  unfavourable  season, 
into  the  interior  of  the  country. 

This  second  invasion  was  followed  by  a  terrible  epidemic 
which  raged  all  winter  and  throughout  the  Spring  of  1915. 
Hundreds  of  thousands  of  men  (including  140  doctors)  perished 
principally  of  typhus.  The  result  was  that  already  in  June, 
1915,  the  total  number  of  war  victims  reached  the  figure  of 
500,000. 


Result  of  German  and  Austrian  Kultur  in  an  old 
Serbian  Peasant  Woman,  75  years  of  age,  mutilated  by 
Germans  and  Austrians. 

An  official  picture,  by  Prof.  Reiss  of  Switzerland. 


Then  came  in  October,  1915,  the  third  invasion  under 
Mackensen,  then  the  Bulgarian  attack  in  the  flank.  These 
events  were  followed  by  the  migration  of  a  whole  people  - 
women,  children  and  old  men  —  across  the  Albanian  mountains 
which  had  hitherto  known  no  travellers  but  enthusiastic  ex- 
plorers or  blase  adventurers  who  no  longer  set  any  value  upon 
their  life  of  boredom.  This  migration  was  made  on  foot,  through 
the  terrific  frosts  of  winter  and  autumn  in  the  months  of 
November  and  December.  Of  39,000  boys  between  1  5  and  1 8 
years  of  age,  taken  away  by  the  commanders  of  the  Serbian 


TRAGEDY     OF     A     NATION  39 

army,  31,000  perished  in  Albania  of  cold  and  hunger,  not  to 
speak  of  the  considerable  number  of  children,  women  and  old 
men  and  soldiers  who  succumbed  there.  In  Corfu,  cholera  lay 
in  wait  for  the  famished  and  mortally  exhausted  soldiers.  The 
total  number  of  Serbian  victims  reached  the  figure  of  800,000 
and  even  of  1 ,000,000  according  to  the  opinion  of  well  informed 
persons.  This  was  already  almost  one-fourth  of  the  total 
population  of  Serbia  according  to  the  statistics  established 
after  the  peace  of  Bucharest.  The  general  statistics  included 
a  considerable  number  of  Albanians  and  Turks,  which  means 
that  the  rate  of  mortality  among  the  Serb  population  proper 
was  even  far  greater.  As  for  the  Serbia  that  was  in  existence 
before  the  Balkan  wars  and  forms  in  every  respect  the  neucleus 
of  the  Serb  nation,  one  may  say  without  exaggeration  that 
pretty  well  «ne-half  of  her  population  had  perished. 

Nor  should  it  be  forgotten  that  the  fate  of  the  Serbs  living 
in  Austria-Hungary  during  the  war  has  been  no  better.  The 
policy  of  the  ruling  classes  of  Austria-Hungary  has  been  to 
solve  the  Serbian-Austrian  during  the  war  quite  simply  by 
exterminating  as  many  Serbs  as  possible.  The  soldiers  of 
Bosnia,  Herzegovina,  Dalmatia,  those  from  the  old  military 
frontier  of  Lika,  from  Croatia,  from  Slavonia,  the  Syrmia, 
Bachka  and  the  Banat  of  Temesvar  —  all  of  them  Serbo-Croat 
lands  —  were  sent  where  the  fighting  was  most  dangerous, 
while  a  regiment  of  prison,  the  gibbet  and  famine  were  applied 
at  home  to  the  rest  of  the  population.  One  need  only  read, 
for  instance,  the  speech  delivered  by  the  Croat  deputy  Guido 
Hreljanovich  a  few  months  ago  in  the  Hungarian  Parliament, 
concerning  the  barbarity  prevailing  in  Bosnia-Herzegovina. 
This  speech,  as  also  the  most  recent  one  by  Dr.  Antun  Tresich- 
Pavichitch,  in  the  Austrian  Reichsrat,  October  17,  1917,  contains 
the  most  horrifying  details.  It  was  received  in  silence  by  the 
Hungarian  chamber.  We  will  not  dwell  upon  this  further. 
These  facts  lie  outside  our  jurisdiction.  We  leave  it  to  the 
Austro-Hungarian  Social  Democracy  to  fight  this  barbarous 
Government,  whose  aim  is  to  prevent  all  development  of  the 
Serb  people  and  to  destroy  its  national  consciousness.  We  will 
merely  state  the  following:  The  Serbo-Croat  nation  which 
numbered  more  than  ten  million  souls  and  whose  annual  increase 
amounted  to  100,000,  has  lost  so  many  of  its  members  during 


40  FRANCO-SERBIAN     FIELD     HOSPITAL 


this  "war  of  liberation"   that  it  cannot  hope   to  reach  its  old 
figure  before  thirty  years  after  the  war. 


The  Occupation. 

When  in  the  Autumn  of  1915,  the  conquerors  crossed  the 
Save,  the  Danube  and  the  Timok,  all  Serbia  was,  as  it  were, 
divided  into  two.  One  part  presented  the  melancholy  picture 
of  a  graveyard  and  the  other  that  of  a  hospital.  The  invaders 
were  no  longer  faced  by  a  redoubtable  adversary  whose  resist- 
ance had  to  be  broken,  but  by  a  sorely  stricken  country,  which 
according  to  the  most  elementary  humanitarian  principles  had 
a  claim  to  be  treated  with  consideration. 

It  is  true  that  Mackensen  within  the  first  days  of  his  entry 
into  the  country  issued  a  solemn  proclamation  in  which  he  invited 
the  entire  civil  population  to  return  quickly  to  its  homes  and 
resume  its  ordinary  occupations,  because  —  thus  it  was  assured 
by  the  famous  General  —  the  war  would  not  be  waged  against 
the  peaceful  population  but  against  armed  and  fighting  forces. 
But  these  were  only  empty  words.  Every  Government  of 
Occupation  in  Serbia  has  been  nothing  but  a  permanent 
war  upon  the  peaceful  population.  And  moreover  it  has 
not  been  a  government  of  occupation  at  all  but  rather  a 
punitive  expedition  on  the  part  of  Austria-Hungary  and 
still  more  on  that  of  Bulgaria,  and  this  is  the  word  which 
most  correctly  and  most  completely  defines  the  character  of  the 
Austro-Hungarian  and  Bulgarian  domination  in  Serbia.  Serbia's 
enemies  have  felt  from  the  very  first,  instinctively,  that  this 
country  would  not  remain  permanently  in  their  possession. 
Therefore  they  made  up  their  minds  to  render  Serbia  altogether 
incapable  of  carrying  on  her  existence.  Unfortunately,  they 
have  already  partially  accomplished  this  task.  It  is  therefore 
the  duty  of  the  civilized  world  to  prevent  them  from  carrying 
out  their  infamous  purpose  to  the  end. 

Passage  of  The  German   Troops. 

It  was  the  German  army  which  during  its  march  through 
Serbia  in  October,  November  and  December,  of  1915,  furnished 
the  precedent  for  this  horrible  policy.  These  troops  did  not 
content  themselves  with  the  formidable  booty  represented  by 


TRAGEDY     OF     A     NATION 


41 


the  vast  property  of  the  State  abandoned  everywhere  in  the 
greatest  disorder  and  which,  according  to  the  statements  of  the 
German  officers  could  only  be  compared  with  the  booty  they 
reaped  in  Russia  after  the  break  through  at  Gorlicz.  Besides 
this,  the  Serbian  people  was  compelled  to  entertain  gratuitously 
and  for  several  months  these  countless  German  legions,  for 
whom  the  Balkans  were  merely  a  highroad  on  their  conquering 
advance  towards  Asia  Minor.  The  poor  Serbian  was  compelled 
out  of  his  humble  means  to  support  the  grandiose  plans  of  the 
German  imperialists  and  to  take  part  in  the  realization  of  their 
aims. 


A  Starved  Serbian  Prisoner  of  War,  taken  by  an    Italian 
factor  in  Austria. 

All  that  was  necessary  for  the  army  and  very  often  much 
that  was  not,  was  so  to  say  snatched  out  of  the  mouths  of  the 
population,  consisting  mainly  of  women  and  children,  and  that 
without  any  compunction  or  compensation.  It  is  true  that 
sometimes  they  were  given  requisition  tickets  in  exchange, 
but  this  was  done  very  rarely  and  always  in  some  non-valid 
form.  It  happened  for  instance  that  poor  ignorant  peasants, 


42  FRANCO-SERBIAN     FIELD     HOSPITAL 

whose  last  cow  had  been  taken  were  found  in  possession  of 
requisition  tickets  bearing  the  following  legend  in  German: 
"Peter  Karageorgevitch  must  pay"  etc.  But  what  is 
worse  is  that  in  most  cases  the  property  of  the  public  was 
destroyed  without  any  necessity,  out  of  pure  spite.  It  would 
be  easy  to  quote  countless  instances  of  this  perverse  and  pur- 
poseless rage  for  destruction  on  the  part  of  the  German  troops 
with  regard  to  the  property  of  the  peasants,  including  cases 
which  fall  within  the  scope  of  camp  humour,  but  which  really 
cost  the  poor  population  too  dear.  We  think  it,  however,  our 
duty  to  declare  that  on  this  occasion  the  German  troops,  although 
they  did  not  in  the  least  respect  the  property  of  the  people, 
never  showed  themselves  barbarous  towards  the  population 
itself.  We  do  not  know  of  a  single  case  in  which  the  German 
soldiers  were  guilty  of  murder  or  outrage  or  of  beating  anybody. 
If  there  have  been  such  cases,  they  were  exceptional. 

After  the  German  hurricane  had  passed,  came  "normal" 
conditions.  Order  was  established  in  Serbia.  Let  us  see  what 
manner  of  order  it  was,  and  is. 

The  Region  Occupied  By  Austria- Hungary. 
The  Economic  Situation. 

The  economic  life  of  Serbia  had  been  disorganized  and 
subjected  to  strain  even  before  the  occupation,  more  than  has 
been  the  case  in  any  of  the  other  belligerent  States.  A  far 
greater  proportion  of  the  population  was  mobilized  in  Serbia 
than  anywhere  else.  The  whole  country  was  transformed  into 
a  veritable  armed  camp.  After  each  enemy  offensive  and  after 
each  epidemic  the  last  remnants  of  the  male  population  in  the 
towns  and  villages  was  called  up  with  the  result  that  all  the 
labour  that  was  left  consisted  of  women,  children  and  old  men. 
Belgrade,  the  economic  and  commercial  centre  of  Serbia  was 
evacuated  and  abandoned  by  the  population  during  the  first 
days  of  the  mobilization,  because  of  its  dangerous  position 
from  a  military  point  of  view.  The  same  thing  happened  all 
throughout  the  whole  of  Northern  Serbia,  the  zone  extending 
along  the  Save  and  the  Danube  as  well  as  in  Western  Serbia 
along  the  Drina.  Thus  during  the  very  first  days  of  the  war, 
all  economic  and  cultural  life  was  brought  to  a  standstill  in  the 
richest  regions  of  our  country,  because  they  were  all  of  them 


TRAGEDY     OF     A     NATION  43 

transformed  into  theatres  of  war  and  deluged  with  blood. 

At  the  moment  of  the  catastrophe  a  great  emigration  took 
place  there  among  that  part  of  the  population  which  was  best 
fitted  for  economic  production.  People  left  their  homes,  their 
workshops,  their  affairs  and  their  fields  en  masse  to  go  across 
Albania  into  the  unknown  world. 

And  what  did  the  "bearers  of  culture"  do  under  these  con- 
ditions? To  the  terrible  burden  of  the  war  which  was  already 
weighing  heavily  upon  the  population,  they  added  the  brutality, 
spoliation  and  corruption  of  a  regime  of  occupation  and  by 
their  robbery  brought  all  Serbia  to  economic  ruin.  What  the 
Germans  failed  to  "put  in  order"  during  their  short  stay  of  a 
few  months,  the  Austrians  and  Hungarians  have  tidied  up  to 
perfection  within  two  years. 

Austria-Hungary  loves  above  all  things  to  lay  stress  upon 
the  order-creating  side  of  her  activity  in  Serbia.  The  great 
neighbour  state  wished  to  prove  to  the  whole  world  that  her 
historic  mission  consists  in  curing  the  "fierce  and  rebellious" 
Serb  nation  of  "politics"  and  educating  it  into  habits  of  economy 
and  industry.  Now  what  has  Austria-Hungary  done  during 
the  last  two  years  in  order  to  encourage  and  stimulate  the 
development  of  the  economic  and  productive  resources  of  Serbia? 

More  Than  150,000  Civilians  Interned  by  The  Austrians. 

The  first  act  of  the  Government  of  occupation  was  to  intern 
in  Hungary  and  Austria  more  than  1 50,000  persons  belonging 
to  the  civil  population  for  no  reason  and  without  any  military 
or  political  necessity.  Hereby  Serbia  was  deprived  of  the  last 
reserves  in  the  way  of  labour  which  were  still  at  her  disposal 
and  countless  families  lost  their  last  support.  Hundreds  of 
thousands  of  children,  women  and  old  men  were  thus  condemned 
to  die  of  starvation.  An  even  more  horrible  fate  was  in  store  for 
those  who  were  interned  and  the  country  was  completely 
denuded  of  the  working  population  which  alone  could  have 
helped  it  to  carry  on.  This  was  the  first  and  the  most  important 
act  of  the  Military  Government  in  its  work  of  economic  and 
cultural  "reorganization"  of  occupied  Serbia.  In  the  meantime 
this  policy  of  internment  is  one  of  the  cruellest  chapters  in  the 
whole  history  of  the  Government  of  occupation  and  we  will 
speak  of  it  presently  in  greater  detail. 


44  FRANCO-SERBIAN     FIELD     HOSPITAL 

Pillage  and  Economic  Ruin. 

After  having  seized  upon  the  last  remnants  of  the  country's 
resources  in  labour,  the  Military  Government  proceeded  similarly 
to  requisition  and  it  does  so  still  unremittingly  —  everything 
indispensable  for  production,  all  material  without  which  the 
future  development  of  productive  resources  is  altogether  im- 
possible. Serbia's  most  important  factories  have  ceased  to 
exist;  the  machinery  has  been  dismantled  and  transported 
across  the  frontier,  together  with  everything  in  the  way  of  tools 
and  raw  material.  Workshops  were  similarly  dealt  with. 

Most  of  the  shops  were  pillaged  in  the  same  way.  The 
peasants  are  deprived  of  the  last  of  their  carts,  horses  and  oxen. 
These  poor  people  are  compelled  to  furnish  the  Military  au- 
thorities regularly  with  draught  animals  and  other  cattle,  even 
if  they  do  not  possess  any.  There  have  been  cases  in  which 
small  peasant  farmers  have  within  eighteen  months  supplied 
the  Austro-Hungarian  authorities  with  fifteen  oxen.  They 
must  find  that  oxen  even  if  they  don't  own  them  at  all.  In 
that  case  they  have  to  buy  it  at  top  prices  or  obtain  it  sur- 
reptitiously at  the  risk  of  their  lives  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Morava  in  Bulgarian  territory.  It  is  their  business  to  know 
where  to  find  it  but  the  animals  have  to  be  furnished,  otherwise 
the  peasant  or  the  commune  in  question  are  compelled  to  pay 
a  fabulous  fine.  It  goes  without  saying  that  in  consequence  of 
this  policy,  Serbia,  which  is  rich  in  cattle  and  produces  much  live 
stock  will  soon  be  deprived  of  it  altogether.  The  peasant  can 
no  longer  fill  his  field,  the  artisan  returns  to  find  an  empty 
workshop  and  the  working  man  has  to  go  unemployed  because, 
of  all  the  factories,  nothing  is  left  but  the  walls.  Even  assuming 
that  after  this  war  of  extermination,  there  would  still  be  hands 
capable  of  work  in  Serbia,  the  necessary  material  for  work  will 
be  altogether  lacking.  This  is  the  state  of  "economic  improve- 
ment" in  Serbia  under  the  regime  of  the  Austro-Hungarian 
Government  of  occupation. 

Serbian  Forests  Cut  Down  to  the  Last  Tree. 

The  axe  is  likewise  a  very  important  instrument  in  the 
spreading  of  Austria-Hungary  culture.  It  is  a  favourable  tool 
of  the  policy  of  occupation  and  a  most  powerful  lever  for  en- 


TRAGEDY     OF     A     NATION  45 

couraging  economic  development  in  the  conquered  domain. 
The  great  predilection  of  Austrians  and  Hungarians  for  timber 
is,  by  the  way,  already  known  by  the  example  of  Bosnia.  More- 
over, there  is  nothing  extraordinary  or  amazing  in  this,  since 
forests  represent  the  best  source  for  acquiring  wealth  to  parvenue 
capitalists  and  adventurers  in  all  colonies.  It  is  possible  to 
gauge  the  extent  to  which  one  country  bears  the  character  of  a 
colony  towards  another  by  the  figures  of  the  export  of  timber 
and  its  by-products.  In  this  respect,  Bosnia  stood  remarkably 
high  with  regard  to  Austria.  Just  now  it  is  Serbia's  turn. 
What  is  being  done  today  in  Serbia  as  regards  her  forests,  which 
are  such  an  essential  resource  of  a  country  like  ours,  is  not 
merely  exaggerated  exploitation  but  down-right  and  complete 
devastation!  Here  is  an  example:  The  Rogot  forest,  which 
was  owned  by  the  State  was  a  very  beautiful  old  and  dense 
forest  in  the  very  heart  of  Serbia.  It  was  worth  several  millions. 
Today  this  forest  no  longer  exists;  it  has  been  cut  down  to  the 
last  tree.  A  wide  and  desolate  expanse  marks  its  former  site. 
All  the  other  forests  of  Serbia,  some  even  larger  and  more 
valuable,  like  those  of  Kopaonik,  Tara  and  Rudnik,  have 
suffered  the  same  fate.  The  sullen  thud  of  the  Austrians  axe 
in  the  depth  of  the  ancient  forests  of  Shumadia  rings  like  the 
blow  of  a  hammer  upon  a  coffin. 

"Requisitions." 

And  while  on  the  one  hand  the  felling  of  timber  proceeds 
apace,  we  have  on  the  other  hand  the  systematic  and  uninter- 
mittent  expropriation  of  all  that  belongs  to  the  population. 
This  goes  by  the  name  of  "requisition."  Almost  all  the  products 
of  the  country,  even  those  which  are  indispensable  in  every 
household;  metal  utensils,  etc.,  are  requisitioned  under  the 
pretext  of  serving  military  needs.  And  they  are  paid  for  at 
absurd  rates!  Indeed,  all  this  is  only  a  veiled  form  of  expro- 
priation. The  whole  of  the  harvest  is  similarly  requisitioned. 
Wheat  is  paid  at  the  rate  of  33  Austrian  crowns  per  100  kilo- 
grammes. Dried  prunes,  one  of  Serbia's  most  important 
export  products,  are  paid  for  at  the  rate  of  10  crowns  per  100 
kgs.  and  that  at  a  time  when  the  Croatian  Government  is 
supplying  the  municipality  of  Vienna,  by  contract,  with  the 
same  kind  of  prunes  at  a  rate  of  50  crowns  per  100  kgs.  Brandy, 


46  FRANCO-SERBIAN     FIELD     HOSPITAL 

too,  is  requisitioned  at  a  rate  of.  from  40  to  50  crowns,  to  be 
resold  later  on  to  the  innkeepers  at  rates  of  from  200  to  250 
crowns,  and  the  superior  qualities  even  at  500  crowns  per  100 
litres.  Oxen  are  paid  for  at  1.80  per  kilogramme.  And  the 
peasant  is  not  even  entitled  to  be  present  when  the  ox  is  weighed! 
This  is  the  business  of  the  officers  and  officials  who  by  reducing 
the  weight  to  be  paid  for  by  one-half  or  thereabouts,  make  a 
very  good  thing  out  of  it  indeed.  Most  of  the  requisition 
tickets  bear,  generally  speaking,  a  round  number  such  as  100, 
150,  200  kgs.,  which  is  already  in  itself  a  clear  indication  of  this 
official  robbery  on  a  vast  scale.  Pigs  are  bought  for  1.50  to  2 
crowns  per  kg.,  whereas  in  Austria-Hungary  they  fetch  from 
6  to  7  crowns.  Apples,  another  important  export  article,  are 
paid  for  at  the  rate  of  25  to  40  crowns  per  100  kg.,  to  be  resold 
at  once  for  80  to  100  crowns  in  Austria-Hungary.  Nuts  are 
requisitioned,  likewise  potatoes,  beans,  fruit,  vegetables,  eggs,  — 
in  one  word,  —  everything. 

Official  Robberies. 

An  elaborately  subtle  system  of  fines  pursues  the  same 
object.  They  are  not  a  penalty  imposed  in  the  general  interest 
of  the  community  in  order  to  enforce  compliance  with  prescribed 
regulations,  but  a  fresh  means  of  despoiling  the  people  and 
helping  the  military  and  civil  employers  to  get  rich  quick. 

Last  summer,  many  inhabitants  of  Belgrade  were  compelled 
to  pay  fines  ranging  from  1,000  to  1,500  crowns  for  having 
exceeded  the  prescribed  allowance  of  water  by  a  few  litres. 
Village  administrations  are  sentenced  for  mere  nothings  or 
under  perfectly  ridiculous  pretexts  to  pay  fines  of  2,000,  3,000 
or  5,000  gold  ducats  (between  4,800  and  12,000  dollars).  Even 
peasants  have  to  pay  their  fines  in  gold  or  in  cash.  The  in- 
tention is  obvious.  The  Serbian  peasant  is  to  be  deprived  of 
the  last  grain  of  gold  left  to  him,  perhaps,  from  the  good  old 
times  of  the  age  of  patriarchal  communism.  Sometimes  the 
authorities  go  so  far  in  this  avidity  to  obtain  gold,  that  e.  g. 
they  presumed  one  day  to  force  the  safe  of  a  well-known  mer- 
chant in  Belgrade  in  order  to  seize  the  2,000  "napoleons"  de- 
posited there  and  to  reimburse  him  for  the  same  at  the  rate  of 
28  crowns  apiece  at  a  time  when  their  value  on  the  market  was 
70  crowns.  And  this  is  not  an  isolated  case!  But  let  no  one 


TRAGEDY     OF     A     NATION  47 


misapprehend  our  purpose.  We  have  no  intention  of  bewailing 
the  fate  of  the  Capitalists,  who  have  more  than  one  opportunity 
during  the  war  to  recoup  themselves  for  losses  sustained  by  a 
tenfold  larger  gain.  We  merely  wish  to  point  out  that  if  such 
proceedings  are  permitted  against  the  well-to-do  citizens  of 
Belgrade,  the  fate  of  the  peasant  in  villages  remote  from  the 
capital,  the  poor  peasant  handed  over  at  discretion  to  the 
unlimited  and  tyrannical  power  of  the  local  gendarme  must  be 
even  more  pitiful. 

As  regards  the  forcible  depreciation  of  the  rate  of 
exchange  for  Serbian  money,  it  is  neither  more  nor  less  than 
robbery  under  arms.  No  soomer  had  Serbia  been  conquered 
than  an  order  appeared  directing  under  threat  of  the  severest 
penalties,  that  the  Serbian  franc  (dinar)  was  not  to  be  worth 
more  than  half  an  Austrian  crown.  As  the  inhabitants  possessed 
no  other  kind  of  money  they  were  obliged  to  circulate  the 
Serbian  which  passed  in  this  way  at  an  absurdly  low  rate  into 
the  hands  of  the  Austrians,  Germans  and  Bulgars.  In  this 
way,  both  the  authorities  and  private  persons  could  indulge  in 
most  lucrative  speculation  in  Serbian  money  which,  thanks  to 
the  high  standard  of  the  metal,  is  worth  twice  as  much  as 
Austrian  money  in  the  international  market. 

Even  today  you  can,  in  Austria,  privately  change  100 
Serbian  dinars  for  something  over  120  Austrian  crowns.  The 
loss  caused  in  this  way  to  the  Serbian  population,  especially  to 
the  poorer  people  who  cannot,  like  the  rich,  afford  to  hold  back 
their  money  until  the  most  propitious  moment,  is  enormous 
and  amounts  to  many  millions.  The  saddest  part  about  this 
speculation,  is  that  the  poor  women,  children  and  old  men, 
forsaken  by  all  the  world  —  had  nothing  but  their  little  savings 
to  fall  back  on  and  were  thus  compelled  to  reduce  by  half  the 
small  amount  of  food  they  had  so  far  been  able  to  procure. 
All  these  refined  methods  of  exploitation  must  obviously  end 
by  exhausting  what  is  left  of  the  wealth  of  the  country.  In 
many  cases  moreover  this  exploitation  is  practised  openly, 
brutally  and  in  the  most  barefaced  fashion.  Especially  during 
the  earlier  months  of  the  occupation,  it  was  the  custom  to  force 
the  doors  of  houses  or  shops  belonging  to  absentee  Serbian 
citizens,  and  to  seize  everything  that  happened  to  please  any 
officer,  police  agent  or  police  spy  that  came  along.  Many 


48  FRANCO-SERBIAN     FIELD     HOSPITAL 


private  dwellings,  especially  in  Belgrade,  were  looted  in  this 
way.  Everything  was  taken,  from  the  linen  and  the  furniture 
to  the  pianos,  which  were  generally  sent  across  the  Save  as 
"war  booty"  for  the  wives  and  mistresses  of  the  Austro-Hun- 
garian  officers.  The  People's  House,  the  property  of  our  Party 
was  not  spared  by  these  robbers  and  murderers.  During  the 
first  days  of  the  occupation,  several  articles  were  removed  and 
many,  especially  books,  destroyed.  Only  four  months  ago 
these  gentlemen  presumed  to  enter  our  People's  House  without 
any  "by-your-leave"  and  to  carry  off  everything  that  was  left, 
without  leaving  any  requisition  tickets.  Hereby  our  Party, 
which  is  poor,  lost  more  than  50,000  dinars  in  Belgrade  alone. 
We  are  by  no  means  anxious  to  plead  our  own  grievance  in 
particular.  We  have  merely  quoted  this  instance  as  an  il- 
lustration of  the  sad  state  of  affairs  in  Serbia.  From  the  fact 
that  such  attacks  are  permitted  upon  the  property  of  a  political 
organization,  which,  as  everybody  knows,  maintains  interna- 
tional relations  and  enjoys,  so  to  say,  international  protection, 
one  may  easily  conclude  what  sort  of  fate  is  reserved  for  the 
population  which  is  protected  by  nobody. 

Briefly,  then,  the  economic  losses  sustained  by  Serbia 
during  the  war— before  and  especially  during  this 
disastrous  occupation  are  so  great  that  the  restoration 
of  the  country  cannot  be  considered  anything  but  ficti- 
tious unless  it  is  culminated  by  collective  financial 
assistance  organized  on  generous  lines,  over  and  above 
the  reconstitution  of  its  political  independence.  This 
financial  assistance  is  the  only  means  of  retrieving  the  country 
from  ruin  and  restoring  it  to  its  former  standard  of  existence. 

The  Food  Policy. 

And  what  compensation  does  the  Austro-Hungarian  Military 
Government  offer  the  Serbian  population  in  order  to  make 
amends  for  all  its  sufferings?  After  requisitioning  everything 
does  it  at  least  guarantee  the  people  the  minimum  necessary 
to  support  life? 

Not  at  all!  On  the  contrary,  everything  is  organized  and 
calculated  in  such  a  way  that  the  population  is  doomed  to  die 
of  starvation.  Serbia  is  by  nature  a  rich  country  which  can 
easily  feed  its  population.  But  for  the  moment  this  country 


TRAGEDY     OF     A     NATION 


49 


is  split  up  into  military  and  administrative  districts  which,  as 
regards  the  exchange  of  foodstuffs  are  separated  from  each 
other  by  veritable  Chinese  walls.  All  exchange  of  foodstuffs 
between  Military  districts  is  strictly  forbidden  and  it  would 
be  easier  for  a  camel  to  pass  through  the  eye  of  a  needle  than  for 
an  egg  to  pass  from  one  district  into  another  in  Serbia.  The 
District  Commanders  dispose  of  unlimited  powers  as  regards 
the  distribution  of  foodstuffs  in  their  districts  and  in  this  respect 
they  are  responsible  to  no  one,  not  even  upon  their  own  Govern- 
ment. The  result  is  that  the  whole  indispensable  interchange 
of  foodstuffs  between  the  various  parts  of  Serbia  has  become 
impossible  and  that  the  whole  surplus  produce  of  any  one  part 


Serbian    Refugees  Waiting  for  Food. 

of  the  country,  which  could  and  ought  to  be  employed  to  supply 
the  needs  of  some  other  region  is  immediately  exported  to 
Austria-Hungary.  Thus  the  authorities  have  ended  by  creating 
an  artificial  shortage  of  foodstuffs  which  is  then  exported  by  the 
District  Commanders  themselves,  by  the  Government  officials 
and  their  civil  agents,  in  the  interests  of  the  most  shameless 
speculation.  In  this  way  certain  officers  and  shady  civilians 
grow  richer  from  day  to  day  while  hundreds  of  thousands  of 


50  FRANCO-SERBIAN     FIELD     HOSPITAL 


Serbian  women,  children  and  old  men  lack  the  necessities  of  life 
and  are  in  the  grip  of  the  most  appalling  famine.  Austrian 
shops,  or  rather  food  cards  are  therefore  the  only  remaining 
resource  of  the  population;  but  only  too  often  one  fails  to  get 
even  the  quantity  one  is  entitled  to  by  the  card.  This  system, 
too,  has  become  a  field  for  specualtion.  It  is  known  for  in- 
stance, that  Austria-Hungary  has  never  had  any  reason  to 
complain  of  a  salt  shortage.  Yet  this  has  not  kept  the  Serbian 
peasant  from  being  left  for  months  together  without  salt  under 
the  pretext  that  there  was  none.  Although  there  was  still 
plenty  in  the  shops.  And  while  the  peasants  were  being  refused 
salt,  Austrian  agents,  soldiers  and  non-commissioned  officers, 
were  selling  that  same  salt,  ostensibly  surreptitiously,  at  the 
rate  of  8,  10  and  12  crowns  per  kilogramme.  Any  one  who 
knows  the  importance  of  salt  for  agriculture  and  especially  for 
stock-raising  will  readily  understand  why  the  peasants  were 
ready  to  part  with  all  their  produce  at  ridiculous  prices  for  the 
sake  of  obtaining  a  little  salt. 

As  for  the  bread  ration,  it  is  the  same  in  Belgrade  as  in 
Austria  (e.  g.  not  equal  to  the  bread  ration  in  Hungary).  In 
spite  of  this,  for  months  together  the  population  of  Belgrade 
received  under  the  name  of  "flour",  merely  a  special  mixture 
which  could  neither  be  made  into  bread  nor  cooked,  nor  eaten, 
and  which  produced  much  sickness  among  the  population. 
As  regards  the  interior  of  Serbia,  there  are  places  where  the 
bread  ration  is  even  more  miserable*.  Thus,  last  Spring,  the 
unfortunate  peasants  of  Baina  Bashta  received  only  one 
kilogramme  of  maize  per  inhabitant  during  one  whole 
month.  It  may  be  imagined  from  this,  what  ration  they  will 
receive  this  winter  and  next  spring. 

****** 
STARVATION  IN  BELGRADE. 

This  food,  (or  rather  starvation)  policy,  is  most  eloquently 
discernible  in  the  faces  of  the  inhabitants  of  Belgrade.  In  this 
town  it  is  absolutely  impossible  to  buy  anything,  no  matter 
what.  It  is  only  exceptionally  and  at  fabulous  prices  that  one 
can  obtain  a  little  fat,  eggs,  potatoes,  or  beans.  One  can  also 
get  a  little  meat  and  that  at  prices  which,  compared  to  those 
ruling  in  Austria  and  Germany,  are  not  even  very  high.  But 


TRAGEDY     OF     A     NATION  51 

as  the  population  almost  throughout  the  country  is  absolutely 
deprived  of  the  means  of  earning  a  livelihood,  these  prices  are 
relatively  high.  In  Belgrade  you  see  hundreds  of  people  waiting 
outside  the  shop  which  sells  meat.  But  as  the  amount  of  this 
offal  (feet,  tripe,  entrails,  etc.)  is  very  limited,  it  has  become 
such  a  delicacy  that  people  consider  themselves  lucky  if  they 
succeed  in  getting  some  once  or  twice  a  month.  For  the  present 
population  of  50,000,  the  municipality  of  Belgrade  furnishes 
from  2,000  to  3,000  litres  of  milk  during  the  summer  season  and 
only  a  few  hundred  litres  in  winter.  Thus  only  persons  who 
are  seriously  ill  and  quite  young  children  receive  a  quarter  of  a 
litre  of  milk  (half  a  pint)  a  day,  and  that  only  after  many 
difficulties  and  most  complicated  procedure.  Last  spring  —  and 
spring  is  the  best  season  for  vegetables  — -  the  weekly  allowance 
was  only  157  grammes  of  vegetables  for  every  inhabitant.  One 
really  fails  to  see  how  these  people  manage  to  keep  alive. 
Thousands  of  women,  children  and  old  men  roam  desperately 
day  and  night  along  the  high  roads  and  through  the  surrounding, 
sometimes  very  distant  villages,  in  order  to  procure  a  little  food. 
Meantime  these  expeditions  are  severely  forbidden.  You  can 
buy  nothing  in  the  villages,  neither  monopolized  produce,  nor 
anything  else.  An  order  has  been  published  in  Belgrade  whereby 
every  woman  caught  in  the  act  of  buying  food  is  sentenced  not 
only  to  arrest  but  to  be  beaten  with  a  stick.  The  food  prices 
fixed  by  the  authorities  are  such  that  no  peasant  will  furnish 
provisions  at  that  price.  That  is  precisely  what  is  wanted  by 
the  men  in  power.  It  is  they  who  go  to  the  villages  and  buy 
up  all  the  provisions  at  the  fixed  prices  and  export  them  to 
Austria.  Their  policy  as  regards  food  prices,  instead  of  helping 
both  consumer  and  producer,  is  directed  against  both  and 
pursues  only  the  sole  object  of  robbing  and  ruining  the  country, 
and  that  is  why  Belgrade,  the  centre  of  a  rich  agricultural 
country,  there  is  greater  distress  and  famine  than  in  Vienna. 

The  desperate  plight  of  the  population  of  Belgrade  de- 
termined Dr.  Veljkovitch,  Mayor  of  Belgrade,  Mr.  Peritch, 
Professor  at  the  University  and  several  others  to  sumbit  a 
memorandum  to  Colonel  Kerschnawi,  Chief  of  Staff  of  the 
Military  Government.  The  requests  embodied  in  this  memo- 
randum were  very  modest.  The  petitioners  requested  in  the 
first  place,  the  simplification  of  the  extremely  lengthy  and 


52 


FRANCO-SERBIAN     FIELD     HOSPITAL 


complicated  procedure  which  the  inhabitants  of  Belgrade  have 
to  go  through  in  order  to  obtain  permission  to  travel  into  the 
interior  and  that  this  permission  should  not  only  be  granted  to 
a  few  privileged  speculators,  but  to  all  who  stood  in  need  of 
procuring  a  few  provisions.  The  Government  was  further 
begged  to  modify  the  policy  of  maximum  prices.  And  finally, 
the  petitioners  requested  that  the  municiplaity  of  Belgrade 
should  itself  be  permitted  to  purchase  the  fixed  quantity  of 
cattle  to  be  slaughtered  in  order  to  prevent  the  military  inten- 
dance  from  speculating  in  this  article  of  food.  The  intendants 
sometimes  supplied  the  municipality  with  animals  the  entrails 
of  which  weighed  43  kg.,  while  the  whole  of  the  meat  weighed 
37  kg.  This  memorandum,  however,  struck  the  authorities  as 
being  an  exceedingly  suspicious  document.  First,  Mayor 
Veljkovitch  was  summoned  to  the  police  station  where  he  was 
officially  questioned  as  to  his  real  intentions.  Then  followed, 
after  a  long  interval,  an  interview  with  Colonel  Kerschnawi 
which  was  extremely  brief  and  frigid.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it 
was  only  Colonel  Kerschnawi  who  spoke.  He  declared  that  the 
Memorandum  was  not  correct  in  its  statements,  that  the  popu- 
lation did  not  surfer  from  a  shortage  of  food,  that  e.  g.,  his  wife 
bought  all  her  provisions  in  Belgrade,  without  any  difficulty 
and  very  cheaply  and  he  wound  up  by  saying  these  matters  did 

not  concern  the  Municipality, 
but  the  Military  Government. 
Upon  this  statement  the  inter- 
view came  to  an  end. 


In  order  duly  to  appreci- 
ate these  incidents  we  must  not 
forget  that  Mayor  Veljkovitch 
is  an  ex-Minister  and  chief  of  a 
party  which  is  in  opposition  to 
Mr.  Pashitch  (Prime  Minister  of 
Serbia)  and  not  at  all  hostile 
to  Austria-Hungary,  while  Mr. 
Pertich  is  a  convinced  Austrophil 
and  generally  known  as  such. 
In  spite  of  this  they  were  both 
of  them,  and  especially  Dr. 


1.  Sketch  of  a  cartridge  with  explosive 
bullets;  2.  Chamber  for  Powder;  3. 
Base  of  the  case  bearing  the  date  1912 
and  the  Austrian  Eagle;  4.  Guide  tube; 
5.  Striker;  6.  Chamber  for  No.  4. 

By  Prof.  Reiss  of  Switzerland. 


TRAGEDY     OF     A     NATION  S3 

Veljkovitch,  so  badly  used  that  the  latter  found  himself  obliged 
to  tender  his  resignation.  It  goes  without  saying  that  the 
authorities  stand  even  less  on  ceremony  with  the  Socialist 
rabble.  One  of  our  comrades,  Town  Councillor,  Mika  Spasso- 
yevitch,  presumed  last  year  in  very  moderate  terms  to  criticise 
this  policy  of  starvation  and  to  demand  bread  for  the  people. 
Although  over  70  years  of  age,  he  was  at  once  arrested  and 
interned  in  Hungary. 

This  intolerable  situation  is  further  aggravated  by  the 
amazing  callousness  shown  by  the  authorities  and  the  Austro- 
Hungarian  banks.  As  Serbia  is  today  deprived  of  all  economic 
life,  everybody  in  the  country  lives  wholly  upon  what  relief 
reaches  him  from  abroad.  People  live  upon  what  they 
receive  from  Switzerland  and  France,  from  their  relations  or 
friends,  or  from  charitable  missions.  Now  in  this  latter  respect, 
Serbia  has  been  overlooked  by  all  the  world.  Twice  only,  in 
1916,  did  missions  —  one  American  and  one  Swiss  —  come  to 
distribute  food  and  clothing  among  the  population  of  Belgrade. 
The  money  received  from  relations  in  Switzerland  and  France 
is  therefore  the  one  vital  resource  of  the  Serbian  population. 
The  sums  which  the  fathers  of  families  have  hitherto  been  able 
to  send  are  very  insignificant  in  comparison  to  the  needs  of  the 
population.  Collectively,  they  only  amounted  to  about  twenty 
million  (francs)  in  two  years.  Nevertheless,  this  sum  represents 
a  very  great  deal  for  many  families,  all  the  more  as  they  receive 
no  other  help.  In  the  meantime  the  Austro-Hungarian  banks 
and  authorities  are  so  cruel  and  so  devoid  of  all  conscience  that 
they  do  not  hesitate  to  delay  the  payment  of  these  sums  for 
months  together.  There  have  been  cases  in  which  sums  de- 
spatched from  Switzerland  or  France  in  September,  1916,  were 
not  paid  out  in  Belgrade  before  March  or  April,  1917  —  after 
six  months  of  speculation.  It  is  really  superfluous  to  explain 
once  more  that  the  position  of  the  population  of  Belgrade  will 
be  terrible  this  winter  and  next  spring,  if  these  poor  people 
are  compelled  to  live  without  money. 

So  far,  they  have,  at  any  rate,  managed  to  exist,  or  rather 
to  vegetate,  painfully,  with  terrible  suffering  and  a  vast  physio- 
logical deficit,  the  dangerous  consequences  of  which  will  not 
make  themselves  felt  until  after  the  war.  But  for  this  winter 
and  next  spring,  the  population  will  be  even  more  cruelly  tried, 


54  FRANCO-SERBIAN     FIELD     HOSPITAL 


because  the  Military  Government  succeeded  in  organizing  a 
perfect  system  for  seizing  this  year's  harvest  (1917)  to  the  last 
grain  from  the  Serbian  population.  All,  for  positively  all  is  at 
this  moment  exported,  so  that  there  is  nothing  left  for  the 
native  population  but  to  fold  its  hands  and  die  of  starvation. 

Help,  as  prompt  and  extensive  as  possible,  is  urgently 
needed  if  this  people,  for  all  that  it  is  endowed  with  great 
vitality,  is  not  to  be  doomed  to  die  of  starvation,  under 
most  terrible  conditions. 

THE  POLITICAL   SITUATION. 

Logically  enough,  the  economic  misery  of  occupied  Serbia 
is  completed  by  political  slavery. 

Of  course  any  kind  of  public  right  is  out  of  the  question- 
No  form  of  collective  life  is  possible  in  Serbia  at  the  moment. 
All  organizations,  including  professional,  co-operative  and  even 
charitable  associations  are  prohibited.  Anyone  daring  to  try 
to  form  any  kind  of  association  would  be  immediately  interned, 
and  perhaps  subjected  to  an  even  more  terrible  fate.  Im- 
mediately upon  his  arrival,  the  first  Military  Governor  of  Serbia 
published  an  order  rigorously  prohibiting  all  politics  in  the 
country.  It  is  not  difficult  to  imagine  what  a  reactionary  and 
military  government  would  understand  under  the  term  of 
"politics."  There  is  only  one  printing  office  in  Belgrade  today, 
the  one  which  is  run  by  the  Military  Governor  General  and 
publishes  the  "Beogradske  Novine"  (Belgrade  News).  All 
private  printing  offices  have  been  closed,  often  having  been 
looted.  Neither  machinery,  nor  any  other  material  is  left:  it  is 
even  forbidden  to  print  menus.  A  printing  press  —  according 
to  the  expression  of  the  local  authorities  —  is  equal  to  an  enemy 
arsenal.  If  a  Serb  citizen  were  to  be  so  bold  as  to  solicit  per- 
mission to  edit  a  paper,  he  would  at  once  be  entered  in  the 
blacklist  of  the  Government.  It  is  forbidden  to  make  use  of 
the  Serbian  alphabet  in  public  traffic,  including  the  post.  Need- 
less to  add,  all  political  activity  is  prohibited,  as  it  is  even 
dangerous  to  say  openly  what  one  thinks  and  even  to  have 
independent  thoughts.  Quite  harmless  humdrum  citizens, 
ignorant  peasants  and  even  gossiping  women  run  the  risk  —  if 
their  harmless  and  naive  conversation  is  overheard  and  reported 


TRAGEDY     OF     A     NATION  55 

by  spies  —  of  being  sent  off  to  internment  camps,  to  prison,  or 
even  the  gallows. 


TERRORISM  IN  SERBIA. 

The  most  elementary  rights  of  man,  are  not  guaranteed 
in  Serbia.  In  the  villages,  the  gendarmes  wield  unlimited 
power  and  lord  it  over  everybody.  Their  methods  of  procedure 
are  an  admirable  reflection  of  the  system  applied  by  the  Austro- 
Hungarian  administration  to  the  subject  nationalities.  Espi- 
onage, denunciations,  exactions  of  all  kinds,  theft  and  sometimes 
even  murder,  are  typical  of  the  behavior  of  the  gendarmerie  in 
the  villages.  In  the  towns  these  privileges  are  enjoyed  by  the 
army  officers  and  non-commissioned  officers.  In  many  towns 
official  notices  are  posted  up  directing  that  the  whole 
native  population;  men,  women,  children  and  old  men, 
must  uncover  their  heads  and  make  a  low  curtesy  before 
each  officer.  Sometimes  you  see  officers  using  their  horse 
whips  upon  rebels  who  fail  to  comply  at  once  with  these  orders. 
Indeed  cudgellings  have  become  a  means  of  education  in  which 
the  Austro-Hungarian  civilizators  take  a  special  delight.  This 
penalty  is  applied  on  every  occasion  and  under  the  most  absurd 
pretexts.  Two  Belgrade  college  students  who  had  been  com- 
pelled by  want  to  become  tram  conductors,  were  each  sentenced 
to  receive  57  blows  with  a  stick  for  having  failed  to  salute  a 
subaltern.  The  poor  lads  fainted  three  times  and  each  time 
the  beating  was  recommended.  After  they  had  been  subjected 
to  this  shameful  punishment  they  were  kept  in  prison  for  a 
month  and  then  interned  in  Hungary.  In  the  prefecture  of 
Police  in  Belgrade,  a  certain  Lieutenant  Wiedmann  enjoys 
unlimited  power  over  the  lives  and  liberties  of  all  the  inhabitants. 
It  depends  only  upon  his  tyranny  whether  any  given  inhabitant 
of  Belgrade  is  arrested,  cuffed,  beaten  with  a  stick,  and  above 
all,  interned,  which,  as  we  shall  presently  show,  is  indirectly 
sentence  of  death.  All  Belgrade  has  —  and  that  often,  in  the 
literal  sense  of  the  word  —  passed  through  the  hands  of  this 
gendarme,  from  ex-Ministers'  to  the  humblest  day-laborer. 
There  is  scarcely  a  person  in  Belgrade  who  has  not  had  cause  to 
complain  of  having  been  maltreated,  insulted  and  outraged  in 
his  most  sacred  feelings  by  this  Austrian  Gessler  who  behaves 


56 


FRANCO-SERBIAN     FIELD     HOSPITAL 


thus  without  any  plausible  pretext  and  without  any  offence  on 
the  part  of  those  whom  he  persecutes.  Serbia  knows  no  per- 
sonage more  hateful  than  this  tyrant  —  which  circumstances 
has  not  prevented  him  from  retaining  his  post  ever  since  the 
beginning  of  the  occupation.  It  is,  therefore,  not  a  case  of 
an  exception  or  an  accidental  mistake,  but  on  the  con- 
trary, this  horrible  individual  personifies  an  entire 
system.  This  fashion  of  maltreation,  the  Serbian  citizens,  of 
reducing  them  to  the  level  of  mere  cattle,  to  enslave  them  as 
completely  as  possible  and  to"  let  them  constantly  feel  their 
degradation,  constitutes  the  very  essence  of  the  Austro-Hungari- 


BULGARS  PLUNDERING  SERBIA 

Plows  collected  by  the  Bulgarian  authorities  in  the  occupied  territory   of   Serbia,    to 
removed  to  Bulgaria  and  distributed  among  the  Bulgarian  agricultural  population. 
This  photograph  was  brought  from  Serbia  by  Mr.  Edward  Stuart,  Head 
of  the  American  Red  Cross  Relief  Mission  to  Serbia,  in  1916. 

an  occupation  in  Serbia.  The  name  of  Lieutenant  Wiedmann 
will  dwell  in  the  memories  of  future  generations  as  the  symbol 
incarnate  of  Austro-Hungarian  ''Kulturtraegerei"  in  Serbia. 

The  courts  exist  not  to  prevent  all  this  robbing  and  tyranny, 
but  to  increase  them.  Not  one  Austro-Hungarian  officer 
accused  of  theft,  exaction,  outrage  or  murder,  has  ever  been 


TRAGEDY     OF    A     NATION 


57 


convicted,  although  these  crimes  are  of  daily  occurrence.  It  is 
even  dangerous  to  lodge  a  complaint  against  an  officer  or  an 
official.  Anyone  endeavoring  to  defend  his  property,  his  honour, 
or  his  life,  even  in  the  most  harmless  way,  is  at  once  arrested, 
beaten,  interned. 

It  would  be  easy  to  quote  countless  instances  of  such  ex- 
cesses. The  arrests  of  perfectly  innocent  citizens  and  their 
being  sentenced  to  incarceration  and  even  death  is  one  of  the 
most  ordinary  occurrences.  The  most  important  auxiliaries  of 
the  courts,  and  indeed  of  the  whole  administration  in  general, 
are  secret  agents,  detectives  and  spies,  recruited  from  the  least 
commendable  and  most  depraved  of  the  Austro-Hungarian  and 
Serbian  populations.  It  is  upon  their  depositions  and  reports 
that  the  property,  liberty,  honour  and  life  of  every  Serbian 
citizen  are  wholly  dependent.  The  courts  only  exist  in  order  to 
lend  a  pseudo-legal  sanction  to  the  decisions  of  these  creatures, 


AN  OFFICIAL  PICTURE  OF  THE  HANGING  OF  PEACEFUL  SERBIAN  FARMERS 

"They  Crucified  Them!"  "They  Crucified  Them!"  They  nailed  them  to  the 
tree,  but  like  Heroes  they  died  "For  you  and  I".  So  is  it  not  then  our  duty  to  help 
those  that  are  left.  "Will  you  be  one?" 


who  form  a  privileged  class  in  Austria-Hungary  and  enjoy  great 
social  consideration.  The  most  trivial  denunciation  can  cast 
a  man  into  prison,  and  death  sentences  are  pronounced  by  the 
court  with  truly  criminal  unconcern.  Thus  35  peasants, 

besides  the  schoolmasters,  Glishitch,  were  shot  or  hanged 
and  250  men  and  women  were  sentenced  to  incarceration 
this  year,  in  the  village  of  Ramatya  (in  the  district  of  Gruzha), 
merely  because  some  old  and  disused  arms  and  old  fowling 


58  FRANCO-SERBIAN     FIELD     HOSPITAL 

pieces  had  been  found  in  the  village.  As  for  individual  death 
sentences  pronounced  by  the  courts  or  even  by  the  gendarmes 
and  carried  out  on  the  spot,  they  are  quite  ordinary  occurrences, 
Many  absolutely  guiltless  hostages  have  been  done  to  death 
in  this  way.  One  is  even  tempted  to  think  that  these  gentlemen 
take  a  special  pleasure  in  the  carrying  out  of  these  death  penal- 
ties. In  many  towns  the  men  are  hanged  and  on  one  occasion 
this  was  even  done  with  a  pregnant  woman  —  with  much 
ceremony  in  the  market  place,  where  the  bodies  are  sometimes 
left  hanging  for  several  days.  And  this  they  call  educating  a 
savage  people!  When  the  Serbian  people  will  have  risen  to 
the  enviable  ethic  and  aesthetic  heights  of  the  Austro-Hungarian 
officers  and  begin  to  take  pleasure  in  these  exhibitions 
and  patronize  them,  the  former  will  presumably  have 
become  capable  of  understanding  the  lofty  culture  of  the  latter. 

INTERNMENT  CAMPS. 

The  greatest  crime  committed  by  the  Austro-Hungarian 
and  Bulgarian  Governments  of  occupation  is  the  internment  of 
perfectly  inoffensive  and  peaceful  citizens  and  their  wholesale 
internment.  All  we  have  so  far  drawn  attention  to,  was  only 
massacre  in  detail.  As  regards  the  internments,  they  are 
nothing  but  wholesale  massacre.  Merely  from  the  region 
occupied  by  Austria-Hungary,  more  than  150,000  Serbian 
subjects  have  been  interned,  including  several  thousands 
of  old  men  of  over  60  years  of  age,  several  thousand 
women  and  even  children  from  8  to  15  years!  In  giving 
this  truly  appalling  figure,  we  are  not  taking  into  consideration 
the  1 50,000  Serbian  soldiers,  prisoners  of  war,  who  share  the 
fate  of  their  interned  brothers  in  Austria  and  Hungary. 

We  should  require  a  whole  book  with  appalling  illustrations 
if  we  wanted  to  depict  the  position  and  existence  of  these  martyrs. 
We  must  abstain  from  doing  so  for  the  moment.  We  will 
confine  ourselves  to  the  following  statement.  The  fate  of 
being  interned  in  Austria-Hungary  or  in  Bulgaria  really 
amounts  to  being  indirectly  sentenced  to  death.  About 
thirty  per  cent  of  these  poor  wretches  have  died  up  to  the 
present.  The  rest  are  dragging  out  a  miserable  existence  amid 
infinite  hardships  and  unspeakable  suffering  while  waiting  for 
inevitable  death.  In  many  concentration  camps  containing  on 


TRAGEDY     OF     A     NATION  59 


an  average  several  thousand  interned  persons,  ten,  twenty,  and 
thirty  deaths  a  day  are  the  rule.  But  in  some  cases,  especially 
in  Hungary,  there  have  been  as  many  as  200  or  300  deaths  a 
day.  There  are  concentration  camps  where  one-half  of  the 
inmates  have  already  died.  This  is  not  ownig  to  some  epidemic 
which  claims  innumerable  victims.  They  die  of  hunger  and 
cold.  There  you  may  observe  in  truly  typical  and  only  too 
frequent  cases,  how  a  perfectly  sound  organism  is  gradually 
reduced  to  die  by  hunger.  During  the  first  state  the  organism, 
although  having  daily  to  submit  to  a  huge  deficit  in  nutrition, 
still  lives  upon  its  former  reserves.  Then  comes  the  second 
stage,  that  of  a  sensation  of  atrocious  animal  irresistible  hunger. 
The  wretched  sufferers  devour  the  grass  they  find  along 
the  hedges,  although  this  kind  of  food  is  strictly  forbidden. 
They  spend  whole  days  in  turning  over  refuse  heaps  and  eat 
everything  more  or  less  resembling  food.  Their  guards  are 
powerless  to  restrain  them,  even  with  the  bayonet.  This  state 
is  followed  by  the  third  and  last,  the  period  of  exhaustion  and 
apathy.  The  sufferer  becomes  completely  indifferent.  The 
best  food  no  longer  tempts  him  in  this  state  of  prostration  and 
he  no  longer  cares  for  life.  Fully  conscious,  calm  and  impassible, 
he  waits  for  the  approach  of  his  last  hour.  When  he  feels  it 
coming  he  lies  down,  covers  himself  up  and  dies  without  uttering 
a  word.  Those  around  him  watch  him  with  equal  indifference, 
well  knowing  that  their  own  fate  will  be  the  same  as  that  of 
their  comrade,  and  that  it  will  overtake  them  ere  long.  In 
countless  cases  the  autopsy  has  revealed  the  fact  that  the 
organism  was  in  ideal  health,  but  that  there  was  not 
one  grain  of  fat  in  the  whole  body. 

Even  those  who  still  survive  must  be  looked  upon  as  half- 
dead  already.  These  poor  wretches  are  doomed  to  die  within 
a  year  or  two  after  the  war.  Only  a  very  small  number  en- 
dowed with  exceptionally  vigorous  constitutions  will  be  able  to 
go  on  living  and  working  after  the  war.  The  horrible  fate  of 
those  interned  is  well  known  to  everybody  in  Serbia,  even  to 
the  very  children.  And  so  every  man  sentenced  to  internment 
upon  the  denunciation  of  some  spy,  is  followed  by  his  distracted 
family,  weeping  and  wailing  as  one  does  in  following  the  dead. 
It  is,  therefore,  not  in  the  least  surprising  or  incomprehensible 
that  people  are  terrified  at  the  prospect  of  being  interned.  But, 


60  FRANCO-SERBIAN     FIELD     HOSPITAL 


when,  last  year,  a  certain  number  of  peasants  from  the  district 
of  Gruzha,  who  were  sentenced  to  internment  by  the  military 
authorities,  presumed  to  hide  and  failed  to  respond  to  the 
first  summons  of  the  authorities,  all  these  poor  people,  about 
forty  in  number,  were  summarily  shot  without  further 
formality.  Their  houses  were  burnt  down,  all  their 
property  destroyed  and  their  families  were  interned. 

We  know  very  well  that  the  civil  population  of  Austria  as 
well  as  her  army,  suffers  likewise  from  lack  of  food  and  that  it 
is  not  possible  to  give  to  the  interned  Serbs  what  others  have 
to  go  short  of.  But  this  does  not  explain  gratuitous  cruelty. 
Thus,  e.  g.  the  money  which  the  interned  Serbs  receive  from 
their  relations,  either  from  home,  or  from  France  or  Switzerland, 
is  specualted  upon  in  a  truly  criminal  fashion  in  the  concentration 
camps.  There  is  a  rule,  in  accordance  with  which,  regardless 
of  the  amount  of  the  sum  sent,  only  a  very  small  proportion  of 
it,  from  20  to  50  crowns  a  month,  is  paid  over  to  the  interned 
recipient.  The  rest  of  the  money  is  left  at  the  disposal  of  the 
officers  and  officials  to  employ  in  all  manner  of  speculations. 
Now  the  inmate  of  an  internment  camp  requires  at  least  a  few 
hundred  crowns  a  month  in  order  to  supplement  the  wretched 
food  he  receives  in  the  camp  with  such  food  as  he  can  obtain  at 
exhorbitant  prices  through  intermediary  agents  from  the 
neighboring  villages.  For  these  interned  people,  money  means 
neither  more  now  nor  less  than  life.  And  so,  by  depriving  these 
people  of  the  money  due  to  them,  the  concentration  camp 
authorities  deprive  them  in  fact  of  their  lives.  This 
criminal  playing  with  human  life  constitutes  an  essential  part 
of  the  policy  of  every  conqueror.  Thus  several  Austro-Hungari- 
an  doctors  attached  to  these  camps  declined  to  see  more  than 
ten  patients  a  day  at  a  time  when  the  death  rate  in  the  camps 
was  from  20  to  30  a  day. 

But  the  most  important  point  of  all  is  that  these  poor  people 
ought  not  to  be  interned  at  all.  There  is  no  kind  of  military 
necessity  for  it.  During  the  occupation  by  the  enemy  armies, 
for  a  whole  year  and  a  half  there  was  not  a  shadow  of  trouble, 
not  an  attempt  at  revolt  in  the  whole  country.  This  fact  need 
not  be  construed  as  a  compliment  to  the  Government  of  oc- 
cupation or  as  a  proof  of  the  existence  of  enviable  conditions  in 
Serbia.  It  simply  proves  that  the  Serbian  people  is  so  exhausted 


TRAGEDY     OF     A     NATION  61 

with  suffering  that  it  can  only  think  of  rest.  In  spite  of  this 
the  Austrian  Military  Government  has  without  any  plausible 
reason  interned  more  than  1 50,000  inoffensive  Serbs  including 
thousands  of  children,  women  and  old  men  over  sixty  years  of 
age.  By  these  internments,  the  families  of  the  poor  wretches 
and  likewise  the  whole  of  the  country  which  was  thereby  de- 
prived of  its  last  reserves  of  labour,  were  doomed  to  starve. 
And  it  was  only  after  all  these  internments  and  other  cruel 
provocations,  as  the  consequence  of  ill-treatment  and  not  as 
a  preliminary  act  which  might  have  justified  it,  that  the  revolt 
in  Southern  Serbia  ensued  in  March,  1917. 

What  is  the  true  reason  for  these  internments  without 
number.  They  are  partly  explained  by  the  stupidity  of  the 
Austro-Hungarian  administration  which  sees  in  every 
Serbian  child  a  person  guilty  of  high  treason  and  a  bomb- 
thrower.  On  the  other  hand  it  is  an  outcome  of  that  criminal 
disregard  of  human  life  which  is  peculiar  to  soldiers,  and  es- 
pecially to  conquerors.  Merely  Lieutenant  Wiedmann,  whose 
name  has  been  mentioned  before,  has  the  loss  of  several  thousand 
human  lives,  at  least,  on  his  conscience.  This  official  will  cause 
a  Serb  to  be  interned  simply  because  the  latter  has  failed  to 
reply  immediately  to  his  question  or  because  he  has  presumed 
to  exhibit  fear  during  his  cross  examination.  This  is  sufficient 
for  him  to  do  a  man  to  death  with  all  his  family.  In  short, 
the  whole  method  of  the  Austrian  Administration  is  directed 
by  the  inexorable  purpose  of  exterminating  the  last 
remnants  of  the  Serbian  population. 

We  protest  emphatically  against  this  criminal  policy  of 
Austria-Hungary.  We  demand  that  an  end  be  put  to  these 
massacres  of  thousands  of  guiltless  Serbian  citizens!  We 
appeal  to  the  entire  civilized  world,  to  raise  its  voice  against 
these  unheard-of  crimes  and  to  demand  of  the  Austro-Hungarian 
Government  that  our  countrymen  be  set  at  liberty  and  sent 
back  to  their  homes.  If  this  liberation  is  not  brought  about 
very  speedily  indeed,  before  the  winter  sets  in  with  its  rigours, 
all  these  people  are  doomed  to  die  within  the  next  few 
months. 

THE  REGION  OCCUPIED  BY  BULGARIA. 

Before  the  beginning  to  depict  the  situation  in  the  Bulgarian 


62  FRANCO-SERBIAN     FIELD     HOSPITAL 


part  of  Serbia,  we  feel  bound  to  draw  attention  to  one  very 
important  fact  which  ought  to  gratify  all  Socialists  in  general 
and  Balkan  Socialists  in  particular,  namely,  that  one  ought 
to  draw  a  sharp  distinction  between  the  ruling  classes  of 
Bulgaria  and  the  Bulgarian  people.  One  of  the  Signatories 
of  this  Memorandum  has  had  the  opportunity  during  the 
earlier  months  of  the  occupation  of  acquiring  personal  knowledge 
of  both  administrations,  the  Bulgarian,  and  the  Austro-Hun- 
garian.  The  Bulgarian  common  soldier,  i.  e.  the  Bulgarian 
people  under  arms  has  everywhere,  wherever  he  has  come  in 
contact  with  it,  produced  a  good  impression  upon  all  the  Serbian 
population.  During  the  early  days  of  the  invasion,  when  every 
soldier  possessed,  so  to  say,  power  of  life  and  death  over  the 
vanquished  population,  when  his  discretionary  powers  were 
unlimited  and  his  responsibility  almost  nil,  while  there  was  as 
yet  no  judicial  order  in  those  regions,  conditions  were  far  better 
in  the  territory  occupied  by  the  Bulgarian  army.  There  was 
far  more  liberty  and  order  than  later  on  when  the  Government 
of  occupation  had  established  itself  there  and  "official"  order 
was  introduced  by  the  ruling  classes.  During  this  first  period 
cases  of  murder,  outrage  and  looting  were  unknown,  and  none 
made  a  pastime  of  ill-using  the  population.  The  situation  in 
the  eastern  part  of  Serbia  (which  was  occupied  by  the  Bulgars), 
was  at  that  time  better  and  less  intolerable  than  that  in  the  West, 
which  was  occupied  by  the  Germans  and  Austrians.  The 
Bulgarian  common  soldier  felt  sympathetic  towards  the  Serbs 
to  whom  he  was  attracted  by  the  kinship  of  race  which  unites 
them,  and  he  fully  appreciated  the  horrible  tragedy  of  our 
position.  It  often  happened  that  these  sons  of  the  Bulgarian 
people  wept  in  our  presence  over  the  ruin  of  Serbia  and  were 
profoundly  unhappy  to  see  Bulgaria  and  Serbia  dragged  once 
more  for  the  third  time,  into  a  fratricidal  war.  Some  of  them 
even  prophesied  a  dark  and  disastrous  future  for  Bulgaria  for 
having  consented  to  foment  discord  between  the  Balkan  peoples. 
It  would  be  false  to  pretend  that  none  but  Socialists  spoke  in 
this  way,  because  among  the  Bulgarian  soldiers  who  expressed 
such  opinions,  there  were  both  ignorant  peasants  and  humble 
townspeople  devoid  of  all  political  education.  It  is  only  natural, 
moreover,  that  this  altogether  instinctive  sentiment  of  solidarity 
should  be  so  highly  developed  among  the  Balkan  peoples,  since 


TRAGEDY     OF     A     NATION  63 


they  were  all  equally  under  the  Turkish  yoke,  the  slavery  of 
which  they  endured  for  centuries.  More  especially  this  senti- 
ment is  bound  to  persist  between  the  Serbs  and  the  Bulgars, 
who  are  really  only  one  people,  speaking  different  dialects  of 
one  and  the  same  language. 

But  a  change  came  over  the  situation  with  the  arrival  of 
the  masters  of  Sofia  and  the  official  policy  dictated  by  the 
reactionary  gang  of  brigands  commanded  by  Radoslavoff. 
These  people  who  have  terrorized  their  own  countrymen  for 
decades,  were  little  inclined  to  show  consideration  to  the  com- 
pletely vanquished  population  of  an  occupied  region.  By  an 
incredible  system  of  outrage  and  a  policy  of  methodical  ex- 
termination of  the  Serbs  these  criminals  seek  to  prepare  the 
ground  for  a  Bulgarian  hegemony  in  the  Balkans  and  the 
establishment  of  a  Bulgarian  Empire  under  the  scepter  of  the 
Coburgs.  The  crimes  committed  against  the  Serbian  people 
by  these  individuals  are  without  number  and  our  report  would 
grow  far  too  long,  were  we  to  describe  in  detail  the  situation  in 
the  Serbian  territory  occupied  by  Bulgaria,  as  we  have  done 
with  regard  to  the  territory  governed  by  Austria-Hungary. 
All  that  has  been  said  already  about  the  Austro-Hungarian 
administration  is  equally  true  of  the  Bulgarian  with  this 
difference,  that  what  has  been  said  about  Austria- 
Hungary  must  be  multiplied  by  itself,  as  it  were,  in  order 
to  be  applicable  to  the  Bulgarian  administration. 

Bad  as  they  are,  courts  at  least  exist  in  the  Austro-Hungarian 
part.  There  is  at  least  some  attempt,  from  time  to  time,  to 
clothe  the  despotism  of  the  authorities  in  some  sort  of  legal 
form.  Sometimes,  and  were  it  only  in  appearance,  public 
opinion  is  considered.  One  feels,  and  were  it  ever  so  slightly, 
restrained  by  vague  forms  of  international  law  and  morality. 

All  this  ceases  completely  as  soon  as  you  enter  the  domain 
of  the  Bulgarian  administration.  Cross  the  Morava  River  and 
you  find  yourself  in  Asia.  The  ruling  classes  of  Bulgaria  have 
proved  that  if  they  are  not  very  good  allies  of  the  Turks,  they 
are  at  least  their  very  apt  pupils.  The  Bulgarian  part  of 
Serbia  knows  nothing  of  courts.  Only  quite  recently  has  a 
court  been  established  in  Nish,  which  has  to  do  duty  for  the 
whole  of  the  occupied  territory  of  Serbia.  It  is  the  police, 
recruited  from  the  very  dregs  of  the  populace,  which  is  invested 


64 


FRANCO-SERBIAN     FIELD     HOSPITAL 


with  unlimited  powers.  The  personal  liberty  of  every  Serb 
citizen,  no  less  than  his  life,  depends  wholly  and  solely  upon 
the  arbitrary  pleasure  of  every  Bulgarian  police  agent  or  gen- 
darme. Beatings  inflicted  upon  men,  women,  children  and  old 
men  are  even  more  common  than  within  Austro-Hungarian 
territory.  Old  men  of  over  60  years  of  age  —  and  that  not  only 
in  the  country  but  also  in  the  towns  —  receive  seventy- five 
blows  with  a  stick  for  failing  to  salute  a  gendarme.  A  woman, 
who  has  a  Bulgarian  officer  living  in  her  house,  and  it  goes 
without  saying  that  he  does  not  pay  his  landlady  anything  —  is 
sentenced  to  twenty- five  blows  with  a  stick  if  the  officer  fancies 
that  the  tablecloth  which  is  laid  in  his  room  is  less  fine  than 


RESULT     OF    A     DUM-DUM     BULLET. 
"Will    you    be    one    to    help    our    Serbian    ally. 


that  of  the  mistress  of  the  house.  A  Serbian  judge  living  in 
Chupria,  a  man  of  superior  education,  is  compelled  every  day 
to  saw  wood  for  the  schoolmistresses  who  lodge  gratis  in  his 
house  in  order  to  avoid  being  beaten.  In  these  regions  the 
Serbs  are  reduced  to  a  veritable  state  of  slavery  such  as  that  of 
which  they  were  subjected  two  centuries  ago  under  the  Turks. 
In  the  Austro-Hungarian  region  there  is  at  least  a  semblance 
of  public  order.  As  for  the  region  occupied  by  the  Bulgars,  the 
most  elementary  guarantee  for  public  safety  is  conspicuous  by 


TRAGEDY     OF     A     NATION  65 


its  absence.  Always  under  threat  of  the  penalty  of  death,  the 
Bulgarian  authorities  resort  to  exactions  and  contributions  to 
such  an  extent  that  many  Serbs  have  been  obliged  to  fly  to  the 
other  side  of  the  Morava  into  the  Austrian  domain.  Numerous 
bands  of  brigands,  tolerated  by  the  authorities,  roam  about  the 
country  plundering  and  murdering  as  they  go.  Not  infrequently 
these  bandits  are  even  secretly  in  league  with  the  Bulgarian 
Officers,  police  agents  and  gendarmes.  Such  are  the  authorities 
which  rule  today  in  occupied  Serbia.  This  is  how  they  promote 
the  happiness  of  Macedonia  and  "liberated  Eastern  Serbia." 

The  limits  of  our  report  do  not  permit  us  to  depict  all  these 
abuses  in  detail.  For  this  reason  we  will  confine  ourselves  to 
drawing  attention  to  several  special  features  of  the  Bulgarian 
Government  of  Occupation  which  are  so  unique  in 
character  that  they  are  without  parallel  even  in  the  Austro- 
Hungarian  domain. 

POLICY  OF  DENATIONALIZATION. 

The  Austro-Hungarian  Administration  was  by  no  means 
innocent  of  a  certain  tendency  to  modify  the  national  culture 
of  the  Serbs,  and  of  aspiring  to  "Croaticize"  and  "Magyarize" 
the  school  youth.  It  also  attempted  a  clerical  propaganda 
among  the  population,  which  it  desired  to  see  imbued  with  this 
spirit.  But  it  achieved  very  poor  results  in  this  direction. 
The  attempt  to  make  the  Serbian  population  into  a  priest- 
ridden  community  was  foredoomed  to  failure  from  the  outset, 
because  from  a  religious  point  of  view,  the  Serbs  are  decidedly 
emancipated.  The  Church,  as  a  political  and  social  institution 
possesses  no  importance  and  no  power  with  us.  The  clergy 
only  exercise  a  very  slight  influence  in  politics.  With  us  it  is 
not  the  priests  who  draw  the  populace  after  them.  On  the 
contrary,  it  is  the  masses  who  exert  their  influence  upon  the 
clergy.  Only  such  priests  as  have  devoted  themselves  energet- 
ically to  the  cause  of  democracy,  have  succeeded  in  playing  a 
leading  part  in  our  country. 

But  all  that  has  been  done  in  this  respect  in  the  Austro- 
Hungarian  domain,  cannot  be  compared  with  the  policy  of 
denationalization  as  pursued  by  the  Bulgars.  The  Bulgarian 
ruling  classes  deny  on  principle,  the  existence  of  the  Serbian 


66  FRANCO-SERBIAN     FIELD     HOSPITAL 

race  throughout  the  whole  of  the  territory  they  have  conquered, 
although  it  is  precisely  this  region  which  furnished  our  land 
with  its  greatest  national  heroes  who  fought  one  hundred  years 
ago  in  the  Serbian  Insurrection  against  the  Turks,  for  Serbia's 
liberty  and  independence,  and  died  for  it  (Stevan  Sindjelitch, 
from  Nish  District,  and  Hajduk  Veljko,  from  Negotin,  etc.) 
But  whoever  would  today  in  this  occupied  region  declare  him- 
self a  member  of  the  Serb  nation  and  insist  upon  this  description, 
would  immediately  be  arraigned  for  high  treason  and  would 
have  signed  his  own  death-warrant.  All  Serbian  writings,  not 
only  the  books  in  the  public  libraries,  but  even  those  found  in 
private  dwellings,  are  being  requisitioned  and  burnt.  It  is 
expressly  forbidden,  even  in  private  intercourse,  to  write 
Serbian. 

Even  the  official  paper  of  the  allied  domain,  the  organ  of 
the  Austro-Hungarian  Military  Government,  is  severely  pro- 
hibited throughout  the  territory  occupied  by  the  Bulgars, 
solely  because  it  is  published  in  Croatian,  i.  e.  in  Serbian,  since 
"Croat"  and  "Serb"  are  only  two  different  designations  for  the 
same  language  and  the  same  people.  It  is  likewise  forbidden  to 
bear  Serbian  names.  One  of  the  signatories  of  this  memo- 
randum, Popovitch,  could  only  obtain  a  passport  in  Chupria 
(a  town  situated  in  the  region  occupied  by  the  Bulgars)  under 
the  name  of  "Popoff",  i.  e.  as  a  Bulgar.  Newborn  infants  are 
only  given  Bulgar  baptismal  names  by  the  Bulgarian  priests, 
so  that  the  faithful  will  have  to  have  them  re-named  after  the 
war.  Only  Bulgarian  is  taught  in  the  primary  schools  and 
instruction  is  given  solely  by  Bulgarian  schoolmasters  and 
mistresses.  It  is  the  same  in  ecclesiastical  matters.  All 
scholastic  and  ecclesiastical  appointments  and  all  offices  in 
municipal  administration  are  filled  by  Bulgars.  Throughout 
the  entire  territory  occupied  by  the  Bulgars  you  will  not  find 
even  one  Serbian  teacher  or  priest.  All  have  been  interned 
or  even  murdered  except  those  who  were  compelled 
under  the  threat  of  death  to  sign  statements  declaring 
that  they  are  Bulgars  and  that  the  districts  occupied 
by  the  Bulgars  are  all  Bulgarian  lands.  The  other  Serbian 
officials  have  been  similarly  dealt  with,  excepting  only  a  few. 
In  proof  of  this,  we  can  only  quote  a  few  cases  which  impressed 
themselves  particularly  upon  our  memories.  For  readily 


TRAGEDY     OF     A     NATION  67 

comprehensible  reasons  we  were  unable  to  carry  away  sys- 
tematically compiled  material  and  written  evidence  from  our 
country.  Here  are  the* cases  in  question: 

(1)  In   the   town   of   Vranja   there   were   killed,   Aksentie 
Mishitch,  priest  and  George  Antitch,  a  former  member  of  the 
Serbian  Parliament  for  that  town. 

(2)  One  night,  in  November,  1915,  the  Arch-priest  Stevan 
Komnenovitch,    the   priests    Michailo    Igniatovitch,    Yosif   Pop- 
ovitch,    Trandafil    Kotsitch,    Svetolik    Antonievitch    and    the 
schoolmaster  Marko  Yokovitch  were  led  away  from  the  town 
of   Leskovazt,   with   their  hands   pinioned.     Two  years  passed 
without  any  of  these  men  having  given  a  sign  of  life  to  his 
family  as  is  usually  done  by  interned  persons.      But  eventually 
the  peasants  discovered,  not  far  from  the  mouth  of  the  Morava, 
several  corpses,  long-haired  and  with  long  beards,  and  showing 
signs  of  a  violent  death.     (The  orthodox  priests  of  the  East  wear 
their   hair   and    beards   long   in   conformity   with    their   order). 
There  can  be  no  doubt  but  that  these  were  the  bodies  of  these 
unfortunate  men,  who  had  been  foully  done  to  death. 

(3)  One    night    the    Bulgarian    authorities    carried    away 
the    priest    Onufrie    Popovitch    from    Vlasotintsi.      Some    time 
afterwards   the  priest's   head,   hidden   under  a  heap  of  stones, 
was  discovered  by  his  family. 

(4)  In     the    village    of    Prekoptchelitza,     the    Bulgarian 
authorities   began     by     looting   the     house   of     a   priest,    Petar 
Tsvetkovitch,  in  order  to  rob  him  of  5,000  dinars  in  gold,  and 
in  the  end  they  murdered  him. 

(5)  On    November   9th,    1915,    the    Bulgarian   authorities 
carried  away  24  Serbian  priests  from  the  town  of  Nish,  in- 
cluding    Luka     Marianovitch,     Yovan     K.     Popovitch,     Yanko 
Yankovitch,   Dobrosav  Markovitch  and  Koyitch.      Not  a  sign 
of  life  from  these  men  has  ever  reached  their  families. 

(6)  On   November   19th,    1915,  a  second  batch  of  priests 
was  carried  away  from  Nish,  including  Tsvetko  Bogdanovitch, 
George  Yankovitch  and  Milan  Tsvetkovitch.      It  is  not  known 
to  this  day  what  has  become  of  them,  or  rather,  one  knows  it 
only   too  well. 

(7)  On  November   14th,   1915,  the  Bulgars  deported  from 
Nish  a  retired  official,  Vessa  Milovanovitch,  brother  of  the  late 
Minister   for   Foreign   Affairs   and   Serbian   Prime   Misinter   Dr. 


68  FRANCO-SERBIAN     FIELD     HOSPITAL 

Milovan  Milovanovitch.  His  wife  in  despair  finally  approached 
the  Bulgarian  general  Ratcho  Petroff,  a  former  personal  friend 
of  Dr.  Milovanovitch.  General  Petroff  replied  by  sending  her 
the  following  official  report:  "The  name  of  Vessa  Milovanovitch 
is  not  on  the  list  of  interned  persons." 

(8)  Three  priests,  George  Petrovitch,  Sima  Yovanovitch 
and   Vladimir    Rashitch   were   taken   away   from    the    town   of 
Zayetchar.     They  were  all  three  murdered  on  the  road  to  Vidin, 
and  their  bodies  thrown  into  a  ditch,  where  they  were  devoured 
by  the  village  dogs.     The  peasants  found  nothing  left  of  the 
bodies,  to  burry  them,  but  the  bones. 

(9)  The  priest  Pavle  Yovanovitch,  of  the  village  of  Veliko 
Yasikovo,    was   killed   in    the   same   manner.     His   wife   subse- 
quently found  the  body  and  had  it  buried. 

(10)  In  March,  1917,  four  citizens  of  the  town  of  Prokuplie 
and   a   priest   Radivoye   Vuchinitch,   were  killed  in   the   open 
street  by  the  Bulgars. 

(11)  The   priest   Trayko,    of    the   village   of   Turekovatz, 
was  taken  away  and  nothing  has  been  heard  of  him  since.      His 
daughter  who  was  accused  of  being  secretly  in  league  with  the 
Serbian  comitadjis,  was  hanged.     But  before  being  hanged,  she 
was  subjected   to   atrocious   tortures   by   being   flogged   with   a 
strand  of  barbed  wire.     The  young  girl's  sister,  wife  of  the  book- 
seller I.  Obrenovitch  of  Leskovatz,  was  so  cruelly  beaten,  that 
not  only  were  all  her  teeth  knocked  out,  but  she  went  mad 
within  two  days  of  the  execution.     She  died  shortly  afterwards. 
Their   brother  Vassa,   a   priest,   was  likewise   taken   away   and 
murdered   together  with  his  son,   a  lad  of    16.     And  all   these 
victims  were  made  in  one  family  alone! 

DEPORTATION  AND  EXTERMINATION  OF  THE 
SERBIAN  POPULATION. 

A  very  large  number  of  Serbs  whom  it  was  not  possible  to 
kill  in  Serbia  have  been  deported  to  Asia  Minor.  Whole  families 
from  Eastern  Serbia,  women,  children  and  old  men  were  dragged 
by  force  from  their  homes  and  carried  off  to  Asia  Minor.  And 
this  is  not  intended  for  personal  and  individual  punishment. 
It  is  a  system,  corresponding  to  a  definite  policy.  All  elements 
capable  of  offering  any  effective  national  resistance  are  first  to 


TRAGEDY     OF     A     NATION  69 


be  eliminated  from  that  part  of  Serbia,  and  then  the  rest  of  the 
population  is  to  be  Bulgarized.  It  goes  without  saying  that 
the  Bulgars  have  here  set  themselves  an  unrealizable  aim,  as 
from  this  point  of  view  Eastern  Serbia  does  not  in  the  least 
resemble  Macedonia.  The  Slav  population  of  Macedonia  easily 
becomes  either  Serbian  or  Bulgarian.  But  as  for  Eastern 
Serbia,  its  national  and  ethical  physiognomy  is  far  too  pro- 
nounced to  permit  of  the  country  becoming  denationalized. 
To  try  to  Bulgarize  that  part  of  Serbia  is  as  stupid  as  would  be 
an  attempt  on  the  part  of  our  Government  to  Serbicize  the 
town  of  Sofia  and  the  neighboring  country  bordering  on  Serbia. 

These  methods  of  denationalization,  which  the  Bulgars  have 
copied  from  the  Turks,  can  only  result  in  the  barbarous  ex- 
termination of  the  harmless  and  unprotected  Serbian  population. 
Those  countless  Serbian  families  which  have  been  deported  to 
Asia  Minor,  are  all  doomed  to  perish.  These  deportations  are 
in  fact  nothing  but  wholesale  executions  of  Serbs,  similar  to 
the  massacres  of  the  Armenians  organized  by  Sultan  Abdul 
Hamid  and  the  Young  Turks. 

The  revolt  which  broke  out  in  March,  1917,  in  Southern 
Serbia,  more  especially  in  Bulgarian  territory,  furnished  the 
Bulgarian  authorities  with  a  splendid  opportunity  of  displaying 
all  the  bestial  cruelty  by  which  they  are  inspired.  It  is  difficult 
to  say  with  certainty  how  it  was  possible  for  this  revolt  to  take 
place.  But  what  is  beyond  all  doubt  is  that  the  Serbian  civil 
population  had  practically  no  hand  in  it.  The  whole  insur- 
rection was  planned  and  carried  out  by  Serbian  soldiers  and 
comitadjis  who  had  succeeded  in  invading  the  authorities. 
These  conspirators  were  very  probably  supported  by  Bulgarian 
and  Austro-Hungarian  deserters  discontented  with  their  fate. 
Nevertheless  it  was  the  innocent  population  which  was  made 
to  answer  for  the  whole  business.  As  the  Serbian  population 
had  been  disarmed  by  the  authorities  since  the  very  beginning 
of  the  occupation,  it  was  not  in  a  condition  to  oppose  the  in- 
surgents or  to  resist  them.  It  was  willy-nilly  compelled  to 
provide  them  with  food  and  lodging  and  to  assist  them  in  other 
ways.  It  goes  without  saying  that  these  acts  were  interpreted 
by  the  Bulgarian  and  the  Austro-Hungarian  authorities  as  a 
direct  participation  in  the  revolt  and  that  these  unfortunate 
people  were  put  to  death  for  them.  And  when  they  sought  to 


70  FRANCO-SERBIAN     FIELD     HOSPITAL 

defend  themselves  before  the  Authorities,  pleading  that  it  had 
been  physically  impossible  for  them  to  resist  the  insurgents, 
they  almost  invariably  received  this  incredibly  cynical  reply: 
"It  was  your  duty  to  resist  all  demands  on  the  part  of  these  men 
and  to  let  yourselves  be  killed,  if  need  be.  But  since  you  would 
not  be  killed  by  them,  we  are  going  to  do  it  instead." 

About  20,000  Serbs  were  killed  under  this  pretext,  of  whom 
3,000  at  the  outside  had  taken  part  in  the  rebellion.  All  the 
rest  belonged  to  the  innocent  civil  population.  Neither  women 
nor  children  were  spared.  The  wife  of  Gaya  Nikolitch,  a  former 
member  of  Parliament,  was  shot  after  having  been  kept  under 
arrest  for  a  week  without  food  or  water,  for  having  started  a 
hospital  in  Lebane  during  the  revolt  for  the  purpose  of  tending 
the  victims  of  the  insurrection.  Thousands  of  women  and 
children  were  interned  and  others  thrown  into  prison.  Thirty- 
six  villages  near  Leskovatz  were  completely  depopulated. 
Families  without  number  were  left  without  house  or  home. 
Almost  the  entire  male  population  of  Nish,  some  4,000  men,  was 
deported.  One  batch  was  sent  by  train  to  Pirot.  The  rest 
had  to  go  on  foot  —  and  have  never  come  back.  .  .  One 
police  official  in  the  neighborhood  of  Nish  boasted  in  company 
of  having  with  his  own  hands  alone  killed  about  300  Serbs. 
"It  was  rather  awkward  at  first",  explained  this  meritorious 
individual,  "it  always  took  several  slashes  with  the  knife; 
but  when  I  got  into  the  way  of  it  a  bit,  the  job  was  quite  easy. 
One  thrust,  and  the  man  was  dead."  It  is  very  likely  that  in 
his  zeal  this  Bulgar  should  have  somewhat  exaggerated  the 
facts.  It  is,  however,  none  the  less  true  that  this  incident  is 
extremely  characteristic  of  the  mentality  of  the  Bulgars  in 
occupation. 

The  cruelty  of  the  Bulgarian  authorities  is  so  great  and  so 
revolting  that  it  sometimes  ends  by  rousing  the  indignation  of 
the  German  soldiers  garrisoned  there,  and  the  latter  even  try 
to  protect  the  Serbian  civilians  who  are  being  maltreated  by 
their  allies.  In  mixed  garrisons,  relations  are  very  strained 
between  Germans  and  Bulgars.  Thus,  e.  g.  the  Town  of  Nish 
is  divided  by  the  main  street  into  two  sharply  distinct  zones. 
A  German  soldier  cannot  enter  the  Bulgarian  zone  except  by 
special  permission  and  only  strictly  on  business.  The  same 
applies  to  the  Bulgarian  soldiers  with  regard  to  the  German  zone. 


TRAGEDY     OF     A     NATION  71 

Truly  the  barbarity  of  the  Bulgarian  ruling  powers  exceeds 
all  limits. 


CONCLUSION. 

Our  object  in  drawing  up  this  memorandum  was  to  reveal 
to  the  whole  world  what  crimes  are  being  committed  by  the 
Bulgarian  and  Austro-Hungarian  ruling  powers  against  the 
Serbs,  and  to  brand  them  as  they  deserve.  But  we  do  not  think 
for  one  moment  of  confounding  the  people  with  their  rulers. 
We  do  not  in  the  least  want  to  preach  vengeance  against  the 
people  of  Bulgaria  or  against  the  peoples  of  the  Austro-Hungarian 
Monarchy.  The  common  soldiers,  whether  Austro-Hungarian, 
Bulgarian  or  German,  have  almost  shown  sympathy  and  pity 
for  the  Serbian  people  in  the  horrible  crisis  it  is  undergoing  at 
present.  Peoples  can  never  go  on  hating  each  other  very  deeply 
for  any  length  of  time.  At  the  worst,  they  can  only  be  misled 
and  blinded  for  a  moment  by  chauvinists  and  the  men  in  power. 
During  the  earlier  months  of  the  occupation  the  German  soldiers 
often  shared  their  food  with  the  Serbian  women  and  children, 
even  as  we  saw  Serbian  women  sharing  their  poor  bread  ration 
with  the  famished  Austro-Hungarian  soldiers  who  go  from 
house  to  house  begging  for  the  food.  This  is  the  most  touching 
display  of  the  spontaneous  solidarity  of  the  great  international 
class  of  those  who  are  oppressed  and  exploited,  and  deprived 
of  their ,  rights.  Those  who  are  not  divided  into  invaded  and 
invaders  and  whose  misery  is  equally  great  in  both  camps. 

OUR  MEMORANDUM  PURSUES  THE  FOLLOWING 

AIMS: 

(1)  We   want   to   urge   the   Russo-Hollando-Scandinavian 
Committee  to  develop  an  energetic  activity  in  favor  of  protecting 
the  Serbian  population  which  has  hitherto  been  protected  by 
nobody  and  forgotten  by  all  the  world.      In  the  first  place  we 
would  call  upon  it  to  work  upon  the  Socialists  of  the  Central 
Empires  so  that  they  may  fight  the  policy  of  their  Governments 
in  occupied  Serbia. 

(2)  We  want  especially  to  urge  the  Social   Democrats  of 
Austria-Hungary    and    Bulgaria    to    develop    a    more    energetic 
activity  both  in  and  out  of  Parliament  in  order  to  help  to  save 


72  FRANCO-SERBIAN     FIELD     HOSPITAL 


the  last  remnants  of  the  Serbian  population  in  the  occupied 
regions.  Their  first  duty  should  be  to  demand  immediately 
from  their  Governments  that  all  interned  Serbs  be  sent  back 
to  their  homes.  They  must  demand  this  release  not  only  for 
the  interned  civilians  but  also  for  the  prisoners  of  war  who  have 
on  the  whole,  with  very  few  exceptions  been  separated  from 
their  families  ever  since  the  first  Balkan  War,  for  five  years,  in 
fact.  There  is  really  no  military  necessity  for  keeping  these 
poor  people  in  camps.  They  have  all  been  disarmed  and  even 
on  their  return  to  Serbia  they  would  still  find  themselves  in 
territory  occupied  by  Austro-Hungarians  and  Bulgars,  and 
under  the  unlimited  power  of  those  in  occupation. 

(3)  We  want  to  draw  the  attention  of  the  civilized  world 
to  the  terrible  distress  which  prevails  at  this  moment  in  Serbia, 
so  that  speedy  assistance  both  in  money  and  in  food,  may  be 
forthcoming  for  this  people  that  has  been  left  so  far  to  its  fate. 
Except  for  the  two  visits  referred  to,  one  from  the  American 
Mission  and  one  from  the  Swiss,  who  came  last  year  to  distribute 
a  little  food  and  clothing  among  the  population  of  Belgrade, 
Serbia  has  so  far  received  nothing  from  Europe,  and  especially 
from  our  Allies,  except  verbal  encouragement. 

(4)  We   want   the   Serbian   Government,    as   well   as    the 
other  Entente  Governments  to  display  greater  interest  in  the 
Serbian  population  which  is  really  not  in  a  state,  under  present 
conditions,  to  endure,  unaided,  the  last  phase  of  the  war. 

(5)  And   we  desire   to  show  by   this   Memorandum   that 
the  vital  need  of  the  Serbian  people  is  not  a  prolongation 
of  the  war,  but  the  speedy  conclusion  of  peace.     This  is 
the  only  condition  under  which  the   final  ruin  of  the  Serbian 
people  can  be  prevented,  and  the  proletariats  of  the  whole  world 
succeed   in  placing   their  respective  Governments  in   the  dock 
for  the  crimes  which,  as  the  last  Congress  of  the  Social  Democrat 
Party  in  Vienna  so  truly  expressed  it,  are  not  only  acts  of  tyranny 
against  the  conquered  peoples  but  also  an  offense  against  the 
peoples  in  the  names  of  whom  they  have  been  committed. 

Stockholm,  November,  1917. 

For  The  Serbian  Social  Democracy, 
DUSHAN  POPOVITCH,  T.  KATZLEROVITCH, 

Secretary  of  the  Party.  Member  of  the  Serbian  Parliament 


TRAGEDY     OF     A     NATION  73 


German   Atrocities   in   Serbia 

A  Cynical  Aoowal  by  a  German  Writer. 


(Translated  from  "Die  Schaubuehne"  January  4,  1917.) 


"Die  Schaubuehne"  a  monthly  political, 
artistic  and  economic  review,  published  in 
Germany,  printed  in  its  number  of  January 
4,  1917,  above  the  signature  of  Oskar  Maurus 
Fontana,  a  German  writer  and  a  reserve 
officer  in  the  German  Army,  who  accompanied 
the  German  troops  to  Serbia,  the  following 
account  of  that  military  expedition.  It 
requires  no  comment 


"On  the  field  of  battle,  military  condemnations  are  pro- 
nounced in  very  summary  fashion.  There  is  almost  no  prelim- 
inary investigation,  neither  prosecutor  nor  defender  are  present. 
The  prisoners  face  their  judges  alone  and  await  the  verdict, 
which  can  only  be  liberty  or  death.  There  is  no  penal 
servitude,  no  confinement  in  chains,  the  sentence  is  pronounced 
in  the  open  air  and  by  a  judge  who  usually  commands  a  regiment. 
A  shell  may,  in  an  hour's  time,  transform  him  into  a  mass  of 
crushed  flesh  and  bones,  so  the  fate  of  the  accused  man  is  of  no 
importance  whatever  in  this  lost  corner  of  territory,  where  the 
houses  seem  to  sleep,  surrounded  by  haystacks,  which  look  as 
if  they  had  existed  for  centuries.  No  one  utters  a  word  for  or 
against  him.  In  two  minutes  the  accused  is  forgotten,  be  he 
still  in  life  and  smiling,  or  lying  stretched  on  the  ground,  his 
limbs  stiff  in  death.  He  is  trampled  upon  and  crushed  like 
some  troublesome  insect.  It  does  not  last  long,  his  fate  interests 
no  one.  His  mother,  his  children,  his  father,  his  brothers,  his 
peasant-farm,  all  that  is  gone,  before  one  has  time  to  think  of 
it,  even  before  the  condemned  man  realizes  it  himself. 

"One  morning,  I  saw  a  young  peasant;  a  captain  was  pushing 
him  gently  before  him  as  if  he  were  merely  going  with  him  to 
requisition  a  haystack.  In  this  scene  there  was,  however, 


74  FRANCO-SERBIAN     FIELD     HOSPITAL 

something  which  gripped  one.  There  was  a  look  in  this  young 
man's  eyes,  such  as  I  have  never  seen  and  such  as  made  me  ask 
'What  is  it  all  about?'  The  captain  and  the  young  peasant 
disappeared.  A  few  seconds  later  I  heard  rifle  fire.  I  made 
inquiries  and  was  told  'a  young  comitadjis,  who  was  captured 
here  during  a  surprise  attack,  has  just  been  shot'.  It  was  the 
young  man  I  had  just  seen  and  then  I  understood  what  the 
indescribable  look  in  his  eyes  was;  it  was  death  I  had  read  there. 

"Some  days  later,  during  a  march,  we  came  to  a  house 
which  was  on  fire.  It  was  a  signal.  Shrapnel  rained  on  us. 
The  soldiers  put  out  the  fire,  and  brought  along  three  women 
and  an  old  man,  whom  they  had  found  near  the  fire.  They  are 
accused  of  having  set  the  house  on  fire.  They  reply  'No! 
They  are  ordered  to  confess.  They  reply:  'We  did  nothing. 
It  is  our  house  which  is  burning;  the  others  set  it  on  fire.'  They 
are  then  asked:  'How  many  Serbian  troops  passed  here?'  They 
reply:  'We  do  not  know':  The  major  says  'Shoot  them.' 

"The  troops  halt.  We  look  on,  breathless,  at  the  drama; 
We  are  so  young  to  make  war.  No  one  tells  these  women  in 
their  own  native  tongue  what  is  going  to  be  done  to  them. 
But  they  have  understood,  they  lower  their  eyes  like  an  animal 
that  awaits  the  fatal  stroke.  They  do  not  protest.  A  mo- 
mentary shudder  passes  over  their  bodies.  They  can  not 
believe  it,  they  do  not  understand,  their  glances  right  and  left 
seek  salvation,  some  miracle.  They  march  slowly  with  dragging 
feet.  Before  their  condemnation  they  had  looked  fixedly  at 
some  of  us,  a  mute  regard  without  tears,  so  piercing,  that  we 
are  forced  to  lower  our  eyes.  Then  we  hear  the  crackling  of 
the  rifles. 

"Half  an  hour  later  soldiers  returning  from  a  reconnaissance 
brought  in  an  old  peasant  and  his  son,  a  youth  of  seventeen. 
They  had  fired  once,  somewhere,  on  the  Austrians,  at  least 
they  are  accused  of  having  done  so.  They  reply  with  a  haughty 
air;  'No.'  And  they  persist  in  their  denial.  They  are  asked: 
'What  do  you  know  of  the  Serbs?  How  many  have  passed  this 
way?'  They  reply:  'We  know  nothing,  we  have  seen  no  one'. 
The  major  orders:  'Shoot  them!'. 

"The  father,  who  had  been  standing  with  lowered  head,  on 
hearing  the  order,  turns  his  eyes  toward  his  son,  who  is  on  the 
left.  The  son  makes  the  same  movement  towards  the  father. 


TRAGEDY     OF    A     NATION 


75 


Their  eyes  meet  and  they  take  farewell  of  one  another;  a  tear 
for  a  moment  glistens  on  the  pupils  which  are  dilated  till  they 
seem  to  fill  their  whole  eyes.  The  look  of  the  son  becomes 
more  energetic:  'I  can  not  die',  he  cries,  'I  am  only  seventeen 
years  old.  I  have  fifty  years  to  live,  I  will  flee,  I  will  flee'. 
The  father  prays,  begs  and  implores  and  again  regards  his  son. 
'Let  them  be  shot'. 

"Who  will  command 
the  firing  party?  Who  will 
do  the  shooting?  There's  a 
long  silence.  Then  some 
one  remembers  a  volunteer 
who  had  declared  he  would 
like  to  kill  traitors  with  his 
own  hands.  I  know  him 
very  well.  He  has  his 
pockets  full  of  love  letters 
which  he  reads  to  his  com- 
rades, and  another  packet 
of  them  in  his  knapsack. 
He  goes  off  with  two  sol- 
diers to  carry  out  his  mis- 
sion. The  son  walks  with 
a  swinging  step  but  the  old 
father  drags  his  feet.  They 
descend  a  slope  and  enter 
a  cornfield.  They  await 
firing  party.  Heavens,  the 

how  long  the  time  seems!  A  soft-hearted  lieutenant  who  is  in 
mourning  for  his  mother,  twists  his  hands  nervously,  taps  the 
trunk  of  a  tree  and  picks  up  mechanically  the  dried  leaves  lying 
on  the  ground.  A  volley,  then  a  second.  I  still  seem  to  see 
the  wandering  glance  of  the  old  father.  Later  I  learned  that 
the  young  man  had  tried  to  flee.  The  escort  caught  up  with  him 
however,  and  he  again  surrendered.  The  old  man  could  not 
stand  on  his  feet.  They  were  forced  to  shoot  him  lying  down. 
"Some  months  later,  two  prisoners  were  brought  in  suspected 
of  being  'comitadjis'.  Both  are  old  men.  One  is  a  reserve 
soldier.  He  wears,  it  is  true,  the  costume  of  a  peasant,  but  his 
military  cap,  of  curious  shape,  of  violent  color,  shows  he  is  a 


RESULT    OF    A    DUM-DUM    BULLET. 

Showing     how    the    wounded    men    of    Serbia 
need  immediate  medical  help. 


76  FRANCO-SERBIAN     FIELD     HOSPITAL 

soldier.  It  may  have  been  that  he  too,  an  hour  ago  fixed  on 
us.  But  he  is  a  soldier,  a  prisoner  of  war.  His  expressionless 
eyes  glance  from  one  person  to  another,  happy  and  confident. 
He  is  saved.  But  the  second  is  probably  a  brigand.  He 
implores,  he  takes  oath  volubly  but  he  has  a  look  of  cunning 
and  just  as  if  it  were  not  his  head  that  is  at  stake  he  bargains 
for  it  as  if  it  were  something  he  has  to  sell. 

"I  would  like  to  have  called  out  to  him,  'y°ur  head  is  at 
stake'.  He  became  confused  in  his  statements,  more  and  more 
obstinate,  he  irritates  everybody  and  in  the  end  he  is  sentenced 
to  be  hanged.  He  remains  before  us  in  his  rage,  without  a 
coat,  clutching  his  blanket,  the  symbol  of  life  in  these  countries, 
for  in  his  mountains  one  may  freeze  to  death  in  the  night  without 
it.  He  remains  with  his  sly  peasant's  face,  an  old  visage  which 
resembles  a  bird's  beak,  he  listens  to  the  sound  of  words  he  does 
not  understand,  reading  their  meaning  on  the  lips,  in  the  eyes 
and  on  the  hands  of  those  addressing  him.  A  shudder  passes 
over  his  body,  and  with  a  gesture  that  reveals  everything  he 
throws,  no,  he  drops,  his  blanket,  his  sole  fortune,  become 
suddenly  a  useless  incumbrance.  It  is  touching  to  see  this 
single  movement  of  a  life  accepting  death.  It  is  his  death 
agony,  the  blanket  lying  on  the  rocks  at  his  feet  will  never 
cover  him  again. 

"Where  is  the  sergeant?  Here  he  conies!  The  sergeant  is 
a  Vinnese,  a  ladies'  hairdresser.  He  has  already  tried  his  hand 
at  hanging  people.  He  will  be  charged  with  this  execution. 
The  Serb  has  turned  his  back  to  us.  He  goes  off  with  the  man 
who  will  end  his  life;  he  marches  bent  but  with  a  resolute  step, 
singing  a  long  and  melancholy  Slav  melody.  He  sings  his  own 
death  song.  He  marches  more  and  more  proudly,  drawing 
himself  more  and  more  erect  at  every  step. 

"He  is  two  hundred  yards  from  us,  near  a  tree,  but  he  still 
continues  to  sing.  Everyone  looks  at  him  through  their  field 
glasses.  As  for  me,  I  turn  my  head  away.  I  think,  oh  man — 
oh,  man!  I  recall  how  the  sergeant  has  often  spoken  to  us  at 
table  of  the  women  whose  hair  he  had  dressed,  their  negliges, 
blond  hair,  black  hair,  auburn  curls  —  I  see  his  hands  in  their 
soft,  silken  tresses,  and  the  same  hands  putting  a  rope  round 
a  man's  neck.  It  is  finished.  The  field  glasses  drop.  The 
column  at  once  resumes  its  march.  I  throw  a  glance  at  the 


TRAGEDY     OF    A     NATION  77 

tree.  The  Serb,  as  if  he  were  leaning  against  it,  is  upright,  stiff; 
his  feet  touch  his  blanket,  lying  in  the  stones  still  warm,  but 
lost,  purposeless,  useless." 


When  we  arrived  at  Kraljevo  we  stopped  at  the  dressing 
station.  In  three  days  6,000  men  passed  through  the  place. 
At  Pritzen  we  met  Sir  Ralph  Paget.  He  told  us  that  the 
Bulgarians  had  cut  all  the  lines  at  Monastir  and  that  we  would 
have  to  walk  back  again  to  Prishtina.  At  a  place  called 
Plavitzna  we  were  unable  to  find  accommodations  and  had  to 
sleep  outside  on  the  hard  stones.  One  severe  experience  was 
walking  over  the  mountain  of  Chakor,  7,500  feet  high.  The 
following  day  the  Montenegrans  sent  a  ship  to  Plavitzna  to 
carry  us  across  into  Sctari.  We  passed  through  a  place  called 
Leash.  There  we  witnessed  a  horrible  sight.  Wounded  men 
by  the  hundreds  lay  dead  in  the  streets,  many  frozen  to  death. 
Our  flight  took  us  through  the  wild  Albanian  country,  dangerous 
to  travelers  because  of  the  fierce  nature  of  the  inhabitants. 

At  Durazzo  the  Italians  sent  over  a  fishing  boat  to  convey 
us  across  into  Italy.  We  were  stranded  for  three  days  and  three 
nights  on  the  boat  because  of  the  danger  from  Austrian  sub- 
marines. The  second  day  out  we  were  in  great  peril.  An 
enemy  submarine  located  the  boat  and  commenced  firing  on  it. 
Happily  no  shots  landed.  But  preparation  was  made  in  case 
it  was  necessary  to  leave  the  boat.  We  had  orders  to  take  off 
our  shoes  and  put  on  life  belts,  ready  to  jump  overboard  and 
fight  for  our  lives.  The  third  day  we  were  escorted  by  eight 
torpedo  boats  to  the  Italian  shore.  We  arrived  in  Rome 
Christmas  morning  thankful  that  we  had  been  spared  from 
death.  The  flight  occupied  seventy-seven  days. 


TRAGEDY     OF     A     NATION 


79 


THE  LORD'S  PRAYER 

A    DEVOUT    INTERPRETATION 


FATHER    NICHOLAI    VELIMIROVIC 


80  FRANCO-SERBIAN     FIELD     HOSPITAL 


FOREWORD 

by    the 
Archbishop   of   York. 

THIS  prose-poem  of  meditation  on  the  Lord's  Prayer  was 
contributed  to  the  "Men's  Magazine"  published  by  the 
Church  of  England  Men's  Society.  It  deserves  to  reach 
a  wider  circle  of  readers.  It  has  an  originality  of  spirit,  method 
and  language  which  distinguishes  it  from  any  other  interpretation 
of  the  Lord's  Prayer  which  I  have  read.  It  could  not  have 
been  written  by  an  Englishman.  Its  atmosphere  is  one  in 
which  our  English  temperament  does  not  naturally  live.  But 
this  is  just  its  special  interest.  It  reveals  the  inmost  soul  of 
the  Serbian  religion,  nurtured  by  Nature,  by  suffering  and  by 
invincible  hope.  Serbia  has  moved  all  hearts  by  her  bravery, 
her  patience,  and  her  sorrows.  Here  is  this  meditation  of  her 
priest-patriot  she  must  surely  move  and  uplift  our  hearts  by 
the  mystic  fervour  of  her  faith. 

All  Saints'  Day 
1916 


TRAGEDY     OF     A     NATION  81 


THE  LORD'S  PRAYER 

A     DEVOUT     INTERPRETATION 


OUR     FATHER 

WHEN  the  clouds  are  thundering  and  the  oceans  roaring, 
they  call  to  Thee:     "Our  Lord!" 

When  the  meteors  fall,  and   fire  springs  up  from  the 
earth,   they  speak  to  Thee:     "Our  Creator!" 

When  the  flowers  are  opening  their  buds  in  the  spring  and 
the  swallows  are  picking  up  pieces  of  dry  hay  with  which  to 
make  their  nests  for  their  young,  they  sing  to  thee:  "Our 
Master!" 

And  when  I  lift  my  eyes  up  to  Thy  throne  I  am  whispering 
to  Thee:  "Our  Father!" 

There  was  a  time,  a  long  and  fearful  time,  when  man  too 
spake  to  Thee  and  called  Thee:  "Lord,  or  Creator,  or  Master! 
Yea,  when  man  felt  himself  to  be  only  a  thing  among  things. 
But  now  by  merit  of  Thy  First-born  and  Best  Son  we  learned 
Thy  right  name.  Therefore,  I  too,  with  Christ,  dare  to  call 
Thee:  "Father!" 

If  I  address  Thee  as  "Lord,"  I  bow  in  fear  before  Thee  as 
a  slave  amongst  an  army  of  slaves. 

If  I  call  Thee  "Creator,"  I  separate  myself  from  Thee  as 
night  is  apart  from  day  or  as  a  leaf  from  its  tree. 

If  I  look  to  Thee  and  say  "Master,"  I  am  as  a  stone  among 
stones,  and  as  a  camel  among  camels. 

But  if  I  open  my  mouth  and  whisper  "Father"  love  takes 
the  place  of  fear,  earth  seems  lifted  nearer  to  Heaven,  and  I 
walk  with  Thee,  as  with  my  comrades  in  the  garden  of  this 
world  and  share  Thy  glory,  and  sorrows  and  strength. 

Our  Father!  Thou  art  the  Father  of  us  all,  and  I  would 
lessen  both  Thee  and  me  if  I  call  Thee:  My  Father! 


82  FRANCO-SERBIAN     FIELD     HOSPITAL 

Our  Father!  Thou  dost  not  care  so  much  about  me,  a 
single  individual,  as  about  the  whole  world.  Thy  Kingdom  is 
Thy  aim,  and  not  a  single  man.  Selfishness  cries  to  Thee: 
my  Father!  But  Love  cries:  our  Father! 

In  the  name  of  all  men,  my  brothers,  I  pray:     our  Father! 

In  the  name  of  all  things,  which  surround  me  and  with 
which  Thou  hast  woven  me,  I  pray  to  Thee,  our  Father! 

I  pray  to  Thee,  Father  of  the  Universe,  only  for  one  thing  I 
pray  to  Thee:  let  soon  dawn  the  great  day  when  all  men,  the 
living  and  the  dead,  in  harmony  with  the  angels  and  stars, 
and  the  animals  and  things,  call  to  Thee  by  Thy  true  name: 
our  Father! 


TRAGEDY     OF    A     NATION  83 

.....     WHICH  ART  IN  HEAVEN. 

WE  lift  our  eyes  up  to  the  Heaven  always  when  calling 
Thee  and  cast  down  them  to  the  earth  when  remember- 
ing our  sins.  We  are  always  in  the  depth  on  account 
of  our  weakness  and  of  our  sins.  Thou  abidest  always  in  the 
height,  as  befits  Thy  magnitude  and  Thy  holiness. 

Thou  art  always  in  Heaven  when  we  are  unworthy  to  receive 
Thee,  but  gladly  Thou  descendest  to  us,  to  our  earthly  housing, 
when  we  are  longing  and  opening  the  door  for  Thee. 

Yet  even  when  Thou  descendest  to  us,  still  Thou  abidest  in 
Heaven;  in  Heaven  Thou  livest,  over  the  Heaven  walkest,  with 
the  Heaven  together  bowest  down  to  our  valley. 

Heaven  is  far,  too  far,  for  the  man  whose  mind  and  heart 
are  turned  from  Thee,  or  who  laughs  when  Thy  name  is  spoken. 
But  Heaven  is  near,  too  near  for  the  man  who  keeps  always 
open  the  door  of  his  soul  and  waits  for  Thy  coming,  our  dearest 
Guest. 

If  the  most  just  man  is  compared  with  Thee,  Thou  towerest 
over  him  as  the  firmanent  of  Heaven  over  the  valley  of  the 
earth,  as  everlasting  life  over  the  realm  of  death. 

We  are  of  destructible  and  perishable  material;  how  could 
we  stand  on  the  same  height  with  Thee,  Immortal  Youth  and 
Strength! 

Our  Father  which  art  always  above  us,  bow  down  to  us  and 
lift  us  up  to  Thee.  What  are  we  but  tongues  constructed  from 
the  dust  for  the  sake  of  Thy  Glory?  The  dust  would  be  silent 
for  ever  and  could  not  tell  Thy  name  without  us,  O  Lord.  How 
could  the  dust  know  Thee  but  through  us?  How  could  Thou 
do  miracles  of  the  dead  dust  but  through  us? 

Oh,  our  Father! 


84  FRANCO-SERBIAN     FIELD     HOSPITAL 

HALLOWED  BE  THY  NAME. 

THOU  wouldest  not  be  holier  if  we  hallow  Thee,  but  in 
hallowing    Thy    name    we    make    ourselves    holy.      Thy 
name   is   wondrous.     The   people   quarrel   on   this   earth 
about  names:  whose  name  is  great?      It  is  good  that  sometimes 
Thy   name   is    mentioned    in    these     quarrels,    because    all    the 
loquacious  tongues  become  at  once  slow  and  hesitating,  and  all 
the   great  human   names   melted   together   cannot   match   with 
Thy  name,  Holy,  All-Holy! 

When  men  want  to  hallow  Thy  name  they  ask  Nature  for 
help.  They  take  stone  and  wood  to  make  the  temples;  they 
adorn  the  altars  with  pearls  and  flowers;  and  make  fire  of 
plants,  their  sisters;  and  take  scent  of  the  cedars,  their  brothers; 
and  strengthen  their  voices  by  the  voice  of  the  bells;  and  call 
the  animals  for  help,  to  hallow  Thy  name.  Nature  is  pure  as 
Thy  stars,  and  as  innocent  as  Thy  angels,  O  Lord.  Be  merciful 
with  us  for  the  sake  of  the  pure  and  innocent  Nature  which 
hallows  Thy  name,  together  with  us,  Holy,  All-Holy! 

In  what  way  should  we  hallow  Thy  name? 

Is  it  by  innocent  joy? — then  be  merciful  with  us  for  the 
sake  of  our  innocent  children. 

Is  it  by  suffering? — then  look  at  our  cemeteries. 

Or  is  it  by  self-sacrifice? — then  remember  the  mothers, 
Oh  Lord! 

Thy  name  is  stronger  than  the  steel  and  clearer  than  light. 
Blessed  the  man  who  depends  and  enlightens  himself  by  Thy  name ! 

The  fools  say:  "We  are  armed  with  steel;  who  can  resist  us?" 
And  Thou  destroyest  kingdoms  by  invisible  insects! 

Terrible  is  Thy  name,  oh  Lord!  It  illuminates  and  it 
consumes  like  a  great  fire-cloud.  Nothing  is  holy  and  nothing 
terrible  that  is  not  bound  with  Thy  name.  Give  me,  oh  Holy, 
give  me  as  friends  those  in  whose  hearts  Thy  name  is  engraved, 
and  as  enemies  those  who  do  not  wish  to  know  anything  about 
Thee.  For  such  friends  will  be  my  friends  to  the  death,  and 
such  enemies  will  kneel  and  surrender  to  me  as  soon  as  their 
steel  is  broken. 

Holy  and  terrible  is  Thy  name,  Holy,  All-Holy!  Let  us 
remember  Thy  name  every  moment  of  our  joy  and  of  our 
abasement  in  life,  as  we  remember  it  in  the  hour  of  death,  yea, 
our  heavenly  Father,  our  Holy  Father! 


TRAGEDY     OF    A     NATION  85 

THY  KINGDOM  COME. 

THY  Kingdom  come,  oh  great  King! 
We  are   tired   of   the   Kings  who  are  seemingly   greater 
than  other  men,  but  who  lie  in  our  cemeteries  together 
with  beggars  and  slaves. 

We  are  tired  of  the  Kings  who  yesterday  declared  their 
power  over  lands  and  nations  and  to-day  complain  of  toothache! 

We  are  tired  of  them  as  of  the  clouds  which  bring  quails 
instead  of  rain. 

"Behold!  this  is  a  wise  man.  Give  him  the  crown!"  the 
crowds  cried.  To  the  crown  it  is  all  the  same  upon  whichever 
head  it  sits.  But  Thou  knowest,  oh  Lord,  the  wisdom  of  the 
wise  and  the  government  of  the  mortal.  Shall  I  repeat  what  is 
known  to  Thee?  Shall  I  tell  Thee  how  the  wisest  among  us 
ruled  over  us  with  Folly  as  a  prop? 

"Behold!  this  is  a  strong  man.  Give  him  the  crown!"  the 
crowds  cried  again,  in  other  times  and  other  generations.  And 
so  the  crown  travelled  silently  from  head  to  head.  But  Thou, 
the  Almighty,  Thou  knowest  the  price  of  the  fortitude  of  the 
exhalted  ones  and  the  government  of  the  strong  ones.  Thou 
knowest  with  how  much  weakness  the  strong  supported  their 
kingdom. 

Now,  we  have  learned  through  suffering  that  there  is  no 
real  king  but  Thou.  Our  soul  is  thirsty  for  Thy  Kingdom  and 
Thy  government.  Wandering  here  and  there,  are  we  not 
enough  hurt  and  wounded,  we,  the  living  survivors  upon  the 
tombs  of  many  kings  and  kingdoms?  We  pray  now  to  Thee 
for  help. 

Let  Thy  Kingdom  come  in  sight!  Thy  Kingdom  of  Wisdom, 
Fatherhood  and  Power!  Let  this  earth,  the  battlefield  of 
thousands  of  years,  be  a  Home,  where  Thou  art  the  Host  and 
we  the  guests!  Come,  King,  the  empty  throne  is  waiting  for 
Thee!  With  Thee  harmony  will  come,  with  harmony,  beauty. 
We  are  all  tired  of  other  kingdoms,  therefore,  we  are  now 
expecting  Thee,  the  great  King,  Thee  and  Thy  Kingdom! 


86  FRANCO-SERBIAN     FIELD     HOSPITAL 

THY  WILL  BE  DONE  ON  EARTH 

AS  IT  IS  IN  HEAVEN. 

HEAVEN  and  earth  are  Thy   fields,   oh   Father.     Upon 
one  field  Thou  sowest  stars  and  angels,  upon  the  other 
thorns  and  man.     The  stars  are  moving  according  to 
Thy  will.     The  angels  sing  on  the  stars  as  on  the  harp,  according 
to  Thy  will.     The  thorns  grow  up  and  sting  men,  according  to 
Thy  will.     But  man  meets  man  and  asks:  what  is  God's  will. 

How  long  will  man  be  ignorant  about  Thy  will,  oh  Father? 
How  long  will  he  abase  himself  before  the  thorns  under  his  feet? 
Thou  createdst  him  for  equality  with  the  angels  and  stars,  and 
lo!  he  is  beaten  even  by  thorns. 

But  behold,  if  man  will  he  can  speak  Thy  name  better  than 
the  thorns,  and  as  well  as  the  stars  and  angels  do.  Oh  Thou, 
the  spirit-giver,  and  will-giver,  give  man  Thy  will. 

Thy  will  is  wise,  and  fresh  and  holy.  This  will  moves  the 
Heaven:  why  should  not  the  same  will  move  the  earth,  which 
compared  with  Heaven  is  as  a  drop  of  water  compared  with 
the  ocean? 

Thy  will  is  wise.  I  listen  to  the  tale  of  the  bygone  generations 
and  I  look  up  to  the  sky  and  know  that  the  stars  are  moving 
as  they  have  done  for  thousands  of  years,  always  in  the  same 
way,  and  are  bringing  in  due  time  summer  and  winter. 

Thou  never  art  wearied,  acting  with  wisdom,  our  Father. 
No  foolish  thing  ever  finds  a  place  in  Thy  plan.  Thou  art  as 
fresh  in  wisdom  and  good  to-day  as  on  the  first  day  of  the 
creation,  and  to-morrow  Thou  wilt  be  as  to-day. 

Thy  will  is  holy  as  it  is  wise  and  fresh.  Holiness  is  insepara- 
ble from  Thee  as  we  from  the  air. 

Whatever  is  unholy  may  climb  up  towards  Heaven,  but  no 
unholy  thing  ever  descends  from  Heaven,  from  Thy  throne, 
oh  Father! 

We  pray  to  Thee,  our  Holy  Father,  that  Thou  mayest  soon 
bring  the  dawning  of  the  day  when  the  will  of  all  men  will  be 
as  wise,  fresh  and  holy  as  Thy  will;  and  when  all  Thy  earthly 
creatures  will  move  in  harmony  with  the  stars  in  Heaven;  and 
when  our  planet  will  sing  in  chorus  with  all  Thy  wondrous  stars- 
Oh  Lord,  teach  us! 
Oh  God,  lead  us! 
Oh  Father,  save  us! 


TRAGEDY     OF    A     NATION  87 

GIVE  US  THIS  DAY  OUR 

DAILY  BREAD. 

HE  that  gives  the  body,  gives  the  soul  too;  and  He  that 
gives  the  air,  gives  bread  as  well.  Thy  children,  oh 
merciful  Giver  of  gifts,  expect  every  needful  thing 
from  Thee. 

Who  would  brighten  their  face  in  the  morning  if  not  Thou 
through  Thy  light? 

Who  would  watch  nightly  over  their  breathing  when  they 
sleep  if  not  Thou,  the  most  indefatigable  of  all  watchers!? 

Where  could  they  sow  their  daily  bread  if  not  upon  Thy 
field?  With  what  could  they  refresh  it  if  not  with  Thy  dew  of 
the  dawn?  With  what  could  they  vivify  it,  if  not  with  Thy 
light  and  Thy  air?  With  what  could  they  test  it,  if  not  with 
the  mouth  Thou  formest  on  them? 

By  what  means  should  they  rejoice  and  give  thanks  to  Thee 
when  fed,  if  not  by  the  spirit  by  which  Thou  hast  inspired  the 
lifeless  clay  and  made  of  it  a  miracle,  oh  Thou  most  miraculous 
Artist? 

I  do  not  pray  to  Thee  for  my  bread,  but  for  our  bread. 
Why  should  I  alone  have  bread  if  my  brothers  around  me  are 
suffering  hunger?  It  would  be  better  and  more  just  if  Thou 
take  from  me  such  bitter,  selfish  bread;  hunger  is  sweeter  shared 
with  brothers  dear.  It  cannot  be  Thy  wish  to  have  the  thanks 
of  one  man  and  the  cursing  of  hundreds. 

Our  Father,  give  us  our  bread!  In  order  that  we  may 
glorify  Thee  in  harmonious  chorus.  And  in  order  that  we  may 
joyfully  remember  our  Heavenly  Father. 

This  day  we  are  praying  for  this  day.  This  day  is  a  great 
one,  it  is  the  birth  of  many  thousands  of  living  creatures. 
Thousands  of  the  new  creatures,  which  yesterday  were  not  and 
which  to-morrow  will  not  be,  to-day  are  rejoicing  together  under 
the  same  sunshine,  together  with  us  they  crawl  upon  one  of 
Thy  stars,  and  together  with  us  they  call  to  Thee:  our  bread! 

Oh  great  Host!  we  are  Thy  guests  from  morning  to  evening, 
we  are  sitting  at  Thy  table  and  waiting  for  Thy  bread.  No 
one  but  Thee  has  right  to  say:  my  bread.  It  is  Thine. 

No  one  but  Thee  has  any  right  of  to-morrow's  day  and 
to-morrow's  bread,  but  Thou  alone  and  those  of  to-day's  earthly 


88  FRANCO-SERBIAN     FIELD     HOSPITAL 

inhabitants  whom  Thou  invitest. 

If  it  is  in  accordance  with  Thy  will  that  the  end  of  this  day 
be  the  dividing  line  of  my  life  and  death,  I  will  bow  before  Thy 
holy  will. 

If  it  is  Thy  will  that  I  to-morrow  may  be  once  more  the 
companion  of  the  great  sun  and  the  guest  at  Thy  table,  I  will 
repeat  my  thanksgiving,  as  I  repeat  it  steadily  day  after  day. 

And  I  will  bow  before  Thy  will  again  and  again,  as  the 
angels  in  Heaven  do,  oh  Giver  of  all  gifts,  material  and  spiritual! 


AND  FORGIVE  US  OUR  TRESPASSES 

AS  WE  FORGIVE  THEM  THAT  TRESPASS  AGAINST  US. 

IT  is  easier  for  a  man  to  trespass  against  Thy  laws  than  to 
understand  them,  oh  Father.  But  it  is  not  easy  for  Thee 
to  forgive  us  all  our  trespasses  if  we  are  not  forgiving 
towards  those  who  trespass  against  us.  For  Thou  foundedst 
the  universe  upon  measure  and  order.  How  could  this  balance 
be  retained  in  the  universe  if  Thou  observest  one  measure 
towards  us  and  we  observe  another  measure  towards  our  neigh- 
bours? Or  if  Thou  givest  bread  to  us  while  we  give  a  stone  to 
our  neighbours?  Or  if  Thou  forgivest  us  our  sins  while  we  are 
hanging  our  neighbours  for  theirs?  How  then  could  the  measure 
and  order  in  the  universe  be  preserved,  oh  lawful  Father? 

Yet  behold  Thou  forgivest  us  more  than  we  can  forgive  to 
our  brothers.  We  defile  the  earth  every  day  and  night  with 
our  crimes,  while  Thou  greetest  us  every  day  through  the  un- 
dimmed  eye  of  Thy  sun,  and  every  night  sendest  Thy  merciful 
forgiveness  through  the  Stars,  those  shining  sentinels  at  the 
gate  of  Thy  court,  our  kingly  Father! 

Thou  makest  us  ashamed  every  day,  oh  most  Merciful! 
For  when  we  are  expecting  punishment  Thou  sendest  to  us  Thy 
mercy;  when  we  are  expecting  Thy  thunders  Thou  sendest  to  us 
a  quiet  evening;  and  when  we  are  expecting  darkness  Thou 
sendest  to  us  the  sunshine. 

Thou  art  always  sublime  above  our  sins,  and  always  mag- 
nificent in  Thy  silent  patience. 

Woe  to  the  fool  who  hopes  to  trouble  Thee  with  a  sacrilegious 
word!  He  is  like  the  boy  who  angrily  casts  a  grain  of  sand  into 


TRAGEDY     OF     A     NATION  89 

the  sea  in  order  to  drive  the  whole  sea  from  its  place.  But 
the  sea  silently  folds  only  its  skin  on  the  surface  and  continues 
to  emphasize  mere  angry  weakness  through  its  immense  power. 

Behold  all  our  sins  are  common,  and  we  all  are  responsible 
for  the  sins  of  all.  Therefore  there  are  not  on  earth  pure, 
righteous  men.  For  all  the  righteous  must  take  upon  themselves 
some  of  the  sins  of  the  sinners.  It  is  difficult  to  be  an  immacu- 
lately righteous  man,  because  there  is  no  righteous  one  who 
does  not  bear  upon  his  back  at  least  one  sinner.  But  how  is  it, 
oh  Father,  give  me  to  understand  it,  how  it  is  that  the  more  a 
righteous  man  bears  the  sinners'  sins  the  more  righteous  he  is? 

Our  Heavenly  Father  who  art  sending  bread  from  morning 
to  evening  to  all  Thy  children  and  art  receiving  their  sins'  in 
payment,  make  less  heavy  the  burden  of  the  righteous  people, 
and  illuminate  the  darkness  to  the  sinners. 

Earth  is  full  of  sins,  but  full  of  prayers  too;  it  is  full  of  the 
prayers  of  the  righteous  one  and  the  despair  of  the  sinners.  Is 
not  despair  the  beginning  of  prayer? 

Thou  must  be  the  victor  after  all.  Thy  kingdom  will  be 
founded  upon  the  prayers  of  the  righteous.  Thy  will  will 
become  the  law  for  men  as  it  is  the  law  for  the  angels. 

Well,  why  then  should  our  Father  hesitate  to  forgive  tres- 
passes to  mortals  and  so  give  an  example  of  forgiveness  and 
mercy? 


LEAD  US  NOT  INTO  TEMPTATION. 


OH,  how  little  it  is  necessary  for  a  man  to  turn  his  face 
from  Thee  towards  idols! 
He  is  surrounded  by  temptations  as  by  storms,  and 
he  is  as  powerless  as  the  foam  upon  a  rough  mountain  brook. 

If  he  is  prosperous,  he  fancies  at  once  he  is  Thy  colleague, 
or  he  puts  Thee  into  his  own  shadow,  or  even  adorns  his  home 
with  Thy  images  as  a  luxury. 

If  evil  knocks  at  his  door,  he  runs  into  the  temptation  to 
make  a  bargain  with  Thee,  or  even  to  cast  Thee  away  altogether. 
If    Thou    callest    him    to    sacrifices,    he    revolts.      If    Thou 
sendest  him  to  death,  he  trembles. 


90  FRANCO-SERBIAN     FIELD     HOSPITAL 

If  Thou  offerest  to  him  all  the  pleasures  of  earth,  he  will 
be  tempted  to  poison  and  kill  his  own  soul. 

If  Thou  discoverest  to  his  eyes  the  laws  of  Thy  creation, 
he  murmurs,  "The  universe  is  wonderful  and  lawful  in  itself, 
without  a  Creator." 

We  are  confused  by  Thy  light,  on  our  shining  Father,  like 
the  night  butterflies.  When  Thou  callest  us  to  the  light,  we  are 
flying  into  the  darkness;  when  we  are  set  in  darkness  we  are 
crying  for  light. 

There  is  a  network  of  many  paths  before  us,  but  we  dare  not 
go  to  the  end  of  any  of  them,  for  at  each  end  there  is  a  temptation 
waiting  for  us  and  luring  us  on. 

And  the  path  leading  to  Thee  is  crossed  by  many  temptations 
as  well  as  by  many  precipices.  Before  temptation  assails  us 
Thou  seemest  to  accompany  us  as  by  an  illuminated  cloud. 
But  when  temptation  comes  Thou  disappearest.  We  turn 
around  in  confusion  and  we  put  to  ourselves  the  painful  question: 
What  was  our  illusion,  Thy  presence  or  Thy  absence? 

In  all  our  temptations  we  ask  ourselves:  Art  Thou  our 
Father?  All  our  temptations  put  into  our  minds  the  same 
question  that  all  the  circumstances  around  us  are  putting  into 
our  minds  from  day  to  day  and  from  night  to  night,  i.e.: 

What  do  you  think  about  the  Lord? 

Where  He  is  and  who  He  is? 

Are  you  with  Him,  or  without  Him? 

Give  to  me  the  power,  my  Fatherly  Creator,  that  I  can  in 
every  hour  of  my  life,  whether  bright  or  dark,  give  the  same 
answer  to  every  possible  temptation  and  to  everything. 

The  Lord  is  the  Lord.  He  is  there  where  I  am  and  where  I 
am  not. 

I  stretch  always  my  passionate  heart  towards  Him  and  my 
hands  towards  His  bright  garments,  as  a  child  towards  its 
beloved  Father. 

How  could  I  live  without  Him?  It  would  mean  to  be  without 
myself  at  the  same  time.  How  could  I  be  against  Him?  It 
would  mean  to  be  against  myself  at  the  same  time. 

A  righteous  son  follows  his  father  with  respect,  quietness 
and  joy. 

Breathe  Thy  inspiration  into  our  soul,  oh  Father,  to  be  Thy 
righteous  sons! 


TRAGEDY     OF    A     NATION  91 

BUT  DELIVER  US  FROM  EVIL. 

WHO  will  deliver  us  from  evil,  if  not  Thou,  our  Father? 
Who  will  stretch  out  hands  to  the  drowning  children, 
if  not  their  father? 

Who  concerns  himself  more  about  the  cleanliness  and  beauty 
of  the  house  than  its  master? 

Thou  didst  call  us  from  nothing  to  be  something,  but  we 
bind  ourselves  down  with  evil,  and  so  we  are  transforming 
ourselves  again  into  nothing. 

We  fold  around  our  hearts  the  very  serpent  that  we  most  fear. 

With  all  our  might  we  are  crying  against  the  darkness,  but 
the  darkness  abides  in  our  souls,  the  microbes  of  darkness  and 
the  microbes  of  death. 

We  are  fighting  with  one  voice  against  evil,  while  evil  silently 
penetrates  our  home;  while  we  are  crying,  evil  is  forcing  one 
position  after  the  other,  and  comes  nearer  to  our  heart. 

Stand  Thou,  the  Almighty  Father,  stand  Thou  between  us 
and  evil,  and  we  will  lift  up  our  hearts,  and  evil  will  evaporate 
like  a  wayside  pool  under  the  burning  sun. 

Thou  art  high  above  us,  and  Thou  dost  not  feel  the  swell  of 
evil;  but  we  are  suffocating  under  it.  Behold,  evil  grows  in 
us  from  day  to  day  before  our  eyes  and  spreads  its  abundant 
fruits  all  around. 

The  sun  salutes  us  every  day  with  "Good  morning!"  and  with 
the  question,  What  have  we  to  exhibit  before  our  great  King? 
And  we  exhibit  only  our  old  corrupt  fruits  of  evil.  Oh  God,  is 
not  the  dust,  unmoved  and  unvivified,  purer  than  man  in  the 
service  of  evil? 

Look,  we  have  built  our  houses  and  our  mansions  in  the 
clefts  and  excavations  of  the  earth.  It  would  not  be  difficult 
for  Thee  to  order  Thy  brooks  to  overflow  all  these  clefts  and 
excavations  and  wash  earth  from  men  and  their  evil  doings. 

But  Thou  art  above  our  danger  and  our  counsels.  If  Thou 
hadst  listened  to  men's  counsels  Thou  wouldest  by  now  have 
destroyed  the  universe  to  its  foundations  and  been  buried 
Thyself  in  the  ruins. 

Oh,  wisest  among  fathers!  Thou  smilest  always  in  Thy 
divine  beauty  and  immortality,  and  behold,  from  Thy  smiles 
the  new  stars  are  growing!  Always  with  a  smile  Thou  turnest 


92  FRANCO-SERBIAN    FIELD     HOSPITAL 

our  evil  into  good,  and  inoculatest  the  tree  of  good  upon  the 
tree  of  evil,  and  so  patiently  curest  our  uncultivated  and  lost 
Garden  of  Eden.  Patiently  Thou  curest,  and  patiently  Thou 
buildest.  Thou  buildest  patiently  Thy  Kingdom  of  good,  our 
King  and  Father.  We  pray  to  Thee;  make  us  free  from  evil 
and  full  of  good,  Thou,  the  perfect  emptiness  of  evil  and  fulness 
of  good. 


FOR  THINE  IS  THE  KINGDOM, 


THE  stars  and  suns  are  the  citizens  of  Thy  Kingdom,  O 
Father.     Do  array  us,  too,  in  this  splendid  army  of  Thine. 
Our  planet  is   small   and   dark,   but   it   is   Thy   work, 
Thy   architecture   and   Thy   inspiration.     How   could   anything 
else  but  great  come  out  from  Thy  masterly  hands?     Yet  by  our 
own  smallness  and  darkness  we  make  our  abiding  place  small 
and  dark.     Yes,  the  earth  is  small  and  dark  ever  when  we  call 
it  our  kingdom  and  when  we  foolishly  pretend  to  be  its  kings. 

Behold  there  are  many  among  us  who  were  kings  on  earth 
and  who  now,  standing  on  the  ruins  of  their  thrones,  are  wonder- 
ing and  asking:  "Where  are  our  kingdoms?"  And  many 
kingdoms  there  are  that  do  not  know  what  happened  to  their 
vain-glorious  kings.  Blessed  and  happy  is  the  man  who  looks 
through  the  clouds  and  whispers  the  words  that  Thou  hearest: 
Thine  is  the  kingdom! 

What  we  call  our  earthly  kingdom  is  full  of  worms  and  as 
perishable  as  the  bubbles  on  the  deep  river.  A  heap  of  dust 
on  the  wings  of  the  wind!  Thou  only  hast  a  true  kingdom,  and 
Thy  kingdom  only  has  a  King.  Take  us  from  the  wings  of  the 
wind,  O  merciful  King,  save  us  from  the  wings  of  the  wind! 
And  make  of  us  the  citizens  of  Thy  Kingdom.  O  yes,  make 
of  us  the  citizens  of  Thy  eternal  kingdom,  near  Thy  stars  and 
suns,  near  Thy  angels  and  arch-angels,  yea,  near  Thee,  our 
Father! 


TRAGEDY     OF    A     NATION  93 


AND  THE  POWER, 


THINE  is  the  power  because  Thine  is  the  kingdom.  The 
quasi-kings  are  powerless.  Their  only  kingly  power  is 
in  their  royal  title,  which  in  truth  is  Thy  title  only. 
They  wander  in  the  dust,  and  the  dust  goes  where  the  wind  wants 
it  to  go.  We  are  the  wandering  shadows  and  moving  dust. 
But  even  when  we  wander  and  move  it  is  by  Thy  power. 

By  Thy  power  we  are  and  by  Thy  power  we  are  going  to 
be.  Earth  would  be  a  corpse  without  Thy  power.  Thou  art 
the  breathing  power  in  every  grain  of  dust,  and  if  the  dust  dances 
it  dances  by  Thy  power,  or  if  the  dancing  dust  is  called  man  it 
is  by  Thy  power. 

Thou  has  lent  a  small  grain  of  Thy  power  to  man.  If  a 
man  does  good  he  does  it  by  Thy  power  through  Thee;  and  if  a 
man  does  evil  he  does  it  by  Thy  power  but  through  himself. 
Everything  which  is  done,  is  done  by  Thy  power,  either  used 
or  misused,  either  understood  or  misunderstood.  If  a  man,  O 
Father,  uses  Thy  power  according  to  Thy  will,  then  Thy  power 
is  Thine,  and  is  good;  if  a  man,  however,  uses  Thy  power 
according  to  his  own  will,  then  Thy  power  is  called  his  own,  and 
is  evil. 

I  say,  O  Lord,  when  Thou  disposest  with  Thy  power,  it  is 
good,  but  when  the  beggars,  who  borrowed  the  power  from 
Thee,  proudly  dispose  with  it  as  with  their  own,  it  is  evil.  So 
there  is  one  keeper  but  many  disposers  of  Thy  power,  and  also 
there  is  no  evil  power  in  the  world,  but  there  are  the  evil  dis- 
posers and  practisers  of  Thy  power,  yea,  of  the  particles  of  Thy 
power  Thou  mercifully  lendest  to  them,  from  Thy  plentiful 
table,  to  those  poor  mortals  on  earth. 

Look  down  upon  us,  O  powerful  Father,  look  down  upon  us 
and  be  slow  in  sending  Thy  power  to  the  earthly  dust  until  it 
prepares  two  rooms  to  take  it  in:  good  will  and  humility — good 
will  to  use  the  borrowed  divine  gift  for  good,  and  humility  to 
be  steadily  reminded  that  all  the  power  in  the  Universe  belongs 
to  Thee,  great  Power-giver! 

Thy  power  is  holy  and  wise.  But  when  in  our  hands  Thy 
power  is  in  danger  to  be  denied  and  to  become  unholy  and 
foolish. 


94  FRANCO-SERBIAN     FIELD     HOSPITAL 

O  Father,  which  art  in  Heaven,  help  us  to  know  and  to  do 
every  day  one  thing,  i.e.,  to  know  that  all  power  is  Thine,  and 
to  use  Thy  power  according  to  Thy  will.  Behold,  we  are 
unhappy  because  we  separated  what  is  inseparable  in  Thee,  we 
separated  power  from  holiness,  and  also  power  from  love,  and 
power  from  faith,  and,  finally — which  is  the  first  cause  of  our 
fall — power  from  humility.  Unite,  Father,  what  Thy  children 
have  foolishly  separated,  we  pray. 

Bring  again  to  honour  Thy  own  power  which  has  been 
disregarded  and  dishonoured,  we  pray.  For  behold,  whatever 
we  are,  we  are  Thy  children. 


TRAGEDY  OF  A  NATION  95 

....  AND  THE  GLORY  FOR  EVER  AND  EVER. 

THY  glory  is  coeternal  to  Thee,  our  kingly  Father.      It  is 
substantial    in    Thee   and    independent    from    us.      It    is 
not  a  glory  of  words  like  the  glory  of  mortals,  but  it 
consists  of  the  same  imperishable  essence  as  Thou  art.     Yea,  it 
is  inseparable  from  Thee  like  the  light  is  inseparable  from  the 
burning  sun.     Whoever  has  seen  the  centre  and  the  periphery 
of  Thy  glory?     Whoever  has  become  glorious  without  the  touch 
of  Thy  glory? 

Thy  dazzling  glory  is  enveloping  us  all  around  and  looking 
silently  at  us,  half-smiling  and  half-wondering  about  our  human 
pains  and  murmurings.  When  we  become  silent  we  are  told 
by  a  secret  whispering:  You  are  children  of  a  glorious  Father! 

O,  how  sweet  is  this  glorious  whispering! 

What  could  we  want  more  than  to  be  the  children  of  Thy 
glory?  Is  it  not  enough?  Surely  it  is  enough  for  a  normal  life. 
But  behold,  men  want  to  be  the  fathers  of  the  glory.  And  that 
is  the  beginning  and  the  culmination  of  their  misery.  They 
are  not  satisfied  to  be  children  and  sharers  of  Thy  glory,  they 
want  to  be  fathers  and  bearers  of  Thy  glory.  Yet  Thou  art  the 
only  father  and  the  only  bearer  of  all  glory.  There  are  many 
mis-users  of  Thy  glory  and  many  self-deceivers.  Nothing  is 
so  dangerous  in  the  hands  of  mortals  as  glory. 

Thou  showest  Thy  glory,  and  men  argue  about  theirs.  Thy 
glory  is  a  fact,  men's  glory  is  a  word. 

Thy  glory  is  always  smiling  and  comforting,  men's  glory 
when  separated  from  Thee  is  terrifying  and  killing. 

Thy  glory  is  nourishing  the  poor  and  leading  the  meek  ones, 
men's  glory  when  separated  from  Thee  is  the  best  arm  of  Satan. 

How  ridiculous  people  are  when  trying  to  make  a  glory  of 
their  own,  outside  and  apart  from  Thee!  There  was  a  fool  who 
hated  the  sun  and  tried  to  secure  a  place  out  of  the  light  of  the 
sun  and  to  have  it  as  his  own.  He  constructed  a  shady  hut  and 
made  no  windows,  and  entered  it,  and  stood  quite  in  darkness, 
and  rejoiced  that  he  had  got  rid  of  the  great  source  of  light. 
Such  a  fool  and  such  an  inhabitant  of  darkness  is  one  who 
makes  effort  to  build  a  glory  of  his  own,  outside  and  apart  from 
Thee,  O  immortal  source  of  glory! 


96  FRANCO-SERBIAN     FIELD     HOSPITAL 

There  is  no  man's  glory,  as  there  is  no  man's  power.  Thine 
is  the  power  and  the  glory,  our  Father.  If  we  do  not  borrow 
from  Thee,  we  are  lacking  both  qualities  and  fading  away  like 
the  dry  leaves  when  separated  from  the  tree  and  scattered  at 
the  mercy  of  the  wind. 


LET  us  be  satisfied  to  be  called  Thy  children.  There  is 
no  greater  honour  on  earth  or  in  heaven  than  this. 
Take  from  us  our  kingdoms,  our  power  and  our  glory. 
All  that  we  ever  called  our  own  lies  in  ruins.  Take  from  us 
what  from  the  beginning  belonged  to  Thee.  Our  whole  history 
has  been  a  foolish  attempt  to  make  our  own  kingdom,  our  power 
and  our  glory.  Close  soon  our  old  history,  during  which  time 
we  have  been  fighting  to  make  ourselves  the  lords  in  Thy  house, 
and  open  a  new  history,  during  which  we  will  try  to  make 
ourselves  the  servants  in  the  house  which  is  Thine.  Behold, 
it  is  better  and  more  glorious  to  be  the  humblest  servant  in 
Thy  kingdom  than  the  greatest  king  in  ours. 

Therefore,  make  us,  Father,  the  servants  of  Thy  kingdom, 
power  and  glory,  through  generations  and  generations,  for 
ever  and  ever.  Amen. 


A    000  Q32Q58 


